The Mitchell Money by Sue Fineman

Author:Sue Fineman [Fineman, Sue]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2011-04-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Gary helped Rachel into the car and strapped her in. She was too drunk to manage it on her own, too pickled to use common sense, too soused to resist the urge to follow Glenda upstairs, where they didn’t belong. Rachel had probably never had this much to drink in her life, and she’d pay for it tomorrow.

Rachel pouted. “You’re mad at me.”

“I’m beyond mad. What in the hell did you think you were doing?”

“The door was open, so we just...went upstairs,” she said, walking her fingers in the air to show him.

“Did you touch anything?”

“Just these,” she said, pulling the negatives out of her pocket.

Gary groaned. “Now you’ve done it.”

“Yep, I sure did,” she said proudly.

If Gary hadn’t been so angry, he would have laughed. Rachel had no idea what she was saying or doing, and he doubted he’d ever see her this way again. All her defenses were gone. All the barriers she’d put up to protect herself were down.

By the time they reached the motel, Rachel was sound asleep and Gary had to help her inside. She sat on the bed, almost asleep, while he pulled off most of her clothes. When he pushed off her blouse, she threw her arms around him and gave him a sloppy kiss. For a first kiss, it wasn’t memorable, but the situation certainly was. She probably wouldn’t remember much, if anything, in the morning.

Resisting the urge to pull all her clothes off and get in bed with her, Gary tucked her in alone. One deep sigh and she was out.

He pulled the negatives out of her pocket and grabbed the phone book. There was an all-night drug store nearby offering one-hour processing. Rachel wouldn’t miss him. She was dead to the world.

****

After breakfast in town Sunday morning, Joe and Johnny strolled down to the church. It was built fifty years ago to replace the original church, which had burned down. Joe’s grandfather furnished the material, and the whole town worked together to erect the building. Joe and Pop attended sporadically, mostly because Pop always got nailed by Mavis when he came.

Joe spotted Mavis talking and laughing with several people in front of the church. Someone waved and called to Joe. He waved back and every head turned in his direction. At that moment, he knew Mavis had been talking about Rachel and Pop again. Somebody needed to stuff a dirty sock in the woman’s mouth.

With his hand on Johnny’s shoulder, Joe stood by the church door as people walked over to talk to him. He greeted each one by name and introduced them to Johnny. All but Mavis Bidwell. She lagged back until nearly everyone else had gone inside. When Joe saw her coming, he and Johnny walked into the church and settled in the front pew on the right, where the Martinson family had sat for generations. The pew was one of the original ones that had been saved from the fire, and it had been polished smooth by generations of Martinson behinds.

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