Something Blue

Chapter 15

Gabe

The sound of whispering made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Whispering and rustling skirts, somewhere in the back of the store. Most times, when the folks in town got it in their minds to make trouble for him, there was little Gabe could do but weather the storm. He worried someday the futility of it all would drive him mad and he'd go looking for trouble before it could sneak up behind him.

Not today. Today, he did his best to avoid it, knowing all the while that the storm was inevitable.

Carrying a crate under one arm, he stacked canned apples into one corner before moving down the row to scoop a sack of beans from the bottom shelf. The whispering continued, a faint giggle cutting through the dusty air, and all the muscles around his spine tightened in discomfort.

God dammit.

He continued shopping, gritting his teeth against the urge to yell. That goddamned preacher called his girls harlots, and... well, sure. Some of them were a bit wanton. But they were honest, and most of them were kind down to their bones. These wives in town were duplicitous bitches, one and all.

The two women followed him through the store, trailing him from aisle to aisle as he forced himself to concentrate on the list he'd been given.

This trouble with the reverend was playing all sorts of havoc on his life. On the one hand, his worry for Katherine was a living thing with venomous skin, growing deep within him and poisoning him from the inside out. On the other hand, Katherine's disappearance had nudged his mother and the reverend one step closer to all out war. The situation had escalated from random acts of vandalism and harassment to a constant flood of threats. Even the toughest of the girls were afraid to go to town. Which meant that it fell to him to do the shopping.

Next stop: dress shop.

Mr. Roberts, the owner of the general store, played a convincing deaf and blind man as the two women followed Gabe through the store like hunters trailing wounded prey. He'd known the women the second they entered, by the pitchy warble of their voices and the cloud of harsh perfume that surrounded them. Mrs. Thompson in the grey, and Mrs. Mulligan in the faded purple. Which meant it was Robert Mulligan and Andrew Thompson who waited somewhere in the street outside to ambush him with clumsy fists and fabricated claims that he sought to debauch their wives. Not so bad, he thought. Robert was a behemoth, but painfully stupid and as slow as he was overfed. Andrew was the soft underbelly of an overturned tortoise.

Retrieving the last item on his list, a box of cornstarch, he rounded a corner and found the aisle blocked by pink satin and gray-blue calico. Lace-trimmed bonnets and shiny, patent-leather shoes peeking from beneath white petticoats. Mrs. Mulligan was a pretty thing, with olive skin, perfect circles of rose brushed onto her high cheekbones. Mrs. Thompson might have been pretty once, but her husband didn't have Mr. Mulligan's wealth or clout. And women like this, vain and vapid, tended toward a reflection of their husbands. So Mrs. Thompson, who might once have been pretty and vibrant, was decked out in rough blue-gray, her face sallow, her hair dull. Even her eyes were filmed over with cloudy acceptance, where her friend's were sparking with wicked intent.

"'Scuse me, ladies," he muttered, jerking his chin toward the end of the aisle. They didn't move. Mrs. Thompson dropped her gaze to the floor, and Mrs. Mulligan lifted her chin, a smirk playing at one corner of her mouth.

"Morning Mr. Townsend," she crooned, the sultry tones like a sweet song played slightly off key.

"Morning, Mrs. Mulligan," he answered tightly. He had other errands to run, dammit. He didn't have time for this game. But there was no road to take that didn't lead to confrontation. He was trapped in a maze that just led him deeper into darkness.