“No, you shouldn’t have,” Johnny agreed.
And still holding Brooks close, he turned and walked out of the shack.
Norma saw them coming and she ran to her truck while Sally jogged to her car to jump in and then pull them back so they could drive right in.
Toby and Dave were already there.
Everyone was hanging on the front porch, but it was only Addie who came racing off it toward Charlie’s truck.
Charlie swung a sharp left and stopped a truck-length away from the other vehicles in order not to hit her.
Johnny opened his door and had barely stepped out before Brooks was pulled from his arms.
Brooks did exactly what he did with Johnny to his mother as she cupped the back of his head, held him tight, and swung him side to side, her lips to his baby fuzz, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Come on, darlin’, come on, child,” Margot whispered, arms around Addie, gently pulling her around. “Let’s get this precious bundle inside, give him a once-over and get some food in his belly. Come, come, come on, my beautiful girl.”
Addie moved with her and Margot’s gaze lifted to Johnny’s. Relief and pride were stamped in it.
They walked away and Izzy touched her sister’s hair as Addie passed her.
Johnny slammed his door, walked to his woman and stopped.
He looked down at her face.
Tears were streaming down her cheeks too.
“I love you,” he said.
Sunlight and moonshine and honey and song and love shone in her face.
“I know,” she replied.
Right then, a police car pulled up the lane.
“Right, out,” Cary said into the speaker at his shoulder.
He looked back to Johnny.
They were alone outside Izzy’s house.
“They caught him on 36. High speed chase. He lost control, ended up in a ditch, tried to run through a field, they ran him down. He’s in custody. And to get back to what we were talking about, he’ll be goin’ down for kidnapping, vehicular theft as well as bank robbery, Johnny. But he’d have been doing that last before you shared what you just shared. We knew.”
Johnny stared into his eyes.
“The bank teller he was doing came in the day after. She wasn’t sure, but since he wrote her a note she thought was about him disappearing, but then reconsidered, she suspected. Shandra took off, leaving you, we looked into shit, gathered the evidence, of which that moron left plenty, we knew,” Cary went on.
Johnny jerked up his chin.
“But I’m glad you told me,” Cary said low, referring to the conversation Johnny had been having with him before his radio squawked. “It wouldn’t have meant anything. Hearsay. You had no physical evidence. It would have just sealed a deal on a slippery felon who’d already had the deal sealed on him. Though I wish you’d have come forward earlier.”
“Shandra gonna get fucked in this?” he asked.
“That’s for the DA to decide. She aided and abetted a bank robber. But no one was harmed during the robbery and everyone knows how screwed in the head that family is. Shandra’s the only decent one in the lot. Everyone thought she’d make her way clear bein’ with you. Pretty much everyone reckoned, Stu disappeared, she did too, he dragged her down all the same.”
“For what it’s worth, she tried to get him to turn himself in.”
Cary nodded. “I’ll talk to the chief and the DA. Chief’s lived in Matlock thirty years longer than me. I reckon he knows the tale of woe of Shandra and Stuart Bray. She might get slapped on the wrist. Worst, community service. But I doubt that, since she got Brooks Forrester and called it in, giving up her brother. Two wrongs don’t equal a right. But one wrong and one right makes you even.”
It was Johnny who nodded then.
Cary looked to the house. “Glad this had a happy ending.”
“Yeah, me too,” Johnny muttered, even though “glad” was not the word he would have used.
Cary looked back at him. “No, Johnny. For that baby, goes without sayin’ I’m glad he’s home safe. But I’m also talking about another happy ending.”
Johnny just stared at him.
Cary grinned. “She as sweet as they say?”
“She’s the world.”
Cary blinked.
Then he smiled.
Then he clapped Johnny on the arm and headed to his cruiser.
Johnny watched him get in and drive away.
And he watched Izzy’s empty lane, assessing the calm of his heart, making sure it was still there.
He felt her arm curl around his waist and her weight lean into him.
He lifted an arm to wrap around her shoulders and kept his eyes on the lane.
“You told him, didn’t you?” she asked.
Fuck yes, he did. If it meant just a month more on Stu’s sentence, he was going to spill.
“Yup.”
“Are you gonna get in trouble?”
“Nope.”
“Angry you didn’t get the chance to beat the crap outta him?”
“Yup.”
“Me too,” she whispered.
That was when he looked down at her.
She lifted blue eyes up to him and gave his waist a squeeze.
“It’s all good, h?schen, let’s go inside.”
“All right, baby.”
She didn’t move.
She called, “Johnny?” like she wasn’t staring straight at him.
“Yeah?” he answered anyway.
“Ich liebe dich auch.”
He kept looking at her.
Then he busted out laughing.
But while doing it, he curled his Eliza to his front and he kissed her.
I’m a Dreamer
Johnny
IT TOOK A lot out of Johnny to watch the man walk into the room in his shoelace-less sneakers and orange jumpsuit.
And bile raced up Johnny’s throat at seeing the excitement in his face as his eyes darted back and forth between Johnny and the woman standing beside him.
He sat in the seat on the opposite side of the glass and swiftly yanked the telephone that was there out of its cradle.
Slowly, Johnny sat in the chair in front of him and lifted the phone at his side.
He put it to his ear, and Stu said instantly, “Are you guys back together?”
Christ, it was like the guy didn’t remember he’d kidnapped Brooks just a week and a half ago and just how insanely messed up that was.
Johnny didn’t get into that.
“Do the right thing,” he stated.
Stu blinked at him.
Then his face got shifty. “Johnny, I was in a bind. You know me. I get that was extreme. But I had no choice. If there was another way, I’da—”
He wasn’t going to listen to this shit.
“Do the right thing,” Johnny repeated.
Stu leaned into the glass and whispered desperately into the phone, “I’m dyin’ in here, brother.”
“Do the right thing, Stu.”
“Been trapped all my life, my parents, their shit. I can’t be trapped, man.”
“Stu, fucking do the right thing.”
Suddenly, as it was with Stu when he wasn’t getting what he wanted, his demeanor changed.
He sat back and started sneering.
“You don’t get it,” he spat. “Johnny Gamble of Gamble Garages. Hot shot. Big man. Money to burn. Dad that thought his shit doesn’t stink. You never felt trapped. You’ve never been fucked over in your whole life.”
“Let her be free.”