Riding High by Stacy Finz

Author:Stacy Finz [Finz, Stacy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-10-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Clay put his arm around Emily as they all walked back to their homes together. She’d been awfully quiet at the meeting. And lately she hadn’t been herself. Weepy one moment, manic the next. The sharp mood swings left him at a loss, especially because she was usually so even-keeled. Not like his late ex-wife, who was a shipwreck.

Clay had tried to discuss the behavior changes with Emily, but she’d dismissed his concerns, accusing him of imagining it.

It was a nice night: still light enough to see and not cool enough for anything more than a light jacket or sweater. When they got far away enough from Gia’s house, Lucky was the first to speak. “I understand your concern, Clay, I really do, but it sounds to me like Gia wants to do a good thing.”

“You and Rhys jumped all over her,” Maddy said. “You were openly hostile.”

“We didn’t jump on her, nor were we hostile,” Rhys replied. “It’s my job to look out for the town and that’s what I did.”

“Outside, I thought Flynn was gonna hit you,” Lucky told Clay.

Flynn had been so pissed Clay thought he’d seen steam coming out of his ears. “He’s my friend. But it’s clear she’s dragging him around by his di . . .”

“Clay!” Emily stopped short.

He held up his hands. “Sorry.” But it was the damned truth. What the hell was Flynn getting involved for? How would he like it if a halfway house went up next door to his folks’ property?

They continued walking until they came to the fork in the road that curved off to Lucky and Tawny’s cowboy camp.

“I don’t want to go against you guys,” Lucky said. “You’re my friends and my neighbors, but I’d like to know more about her program before I give a definitive no. My mother could’ve used the kind of help Gia’s talking about. And it wasn’t that long ago that Tawny struggled with being a single mom with a sick child while trying to hold her business together. So despite whatever Gia’s motives are, I’m sympathetic to the cause.” He looked at his wife and she smiled at him with pride.

Clay worried that Gia’s proposal might divide neighbors and he didn’t like that. They were a cohesive group who depended on each other in tough times. He didn’t want this to turn into a war between them, but he also didn’t want the tranquility of his bucolic community to be shaken.

“I say the six of us meet”—Lucky circled his hand around their small group—“and come up with a bunch of questions for her to address. Then we’ll see if we’re satisfied.”

“I have to think about more than just us,” Rhys reiterated. “I have to think about the whole community.”

Clay had already made up his mind. He didn’t want a damn women’s shelter anywhere in the vicinity, but he also didn’t want to brush off Lucky.

“We can meet at our house next weekend,” he said. “In the meantime, I’d like to research the zoning restrictions.

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