Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake) by Rachel Caine (red white royal blue TXT) 📗

Connor has, especially back in that grim compound at Bitter Falls. I lock gazes with my son and say, “Fine. We’ll all go to the gun range. But you need to understand: if you start to feel uncomfortable, even a little, you tell me or Sam, and we will get you out of there. All right?”

He nods, and I see tension ease out of him. Sam’s still watching me, and when I transfer my attention back to him, he nods once and digs into his salad.

Lanny drops her fork. Loudly. She sits back in her chair with her arms folded. “Wow. Really. Not even a discussion?”

“Not even,” Connor says. He’s way too smug about it. “What? You don’t think I can handle it?”

“Like I worry about you at all.” Lanny shoves her chair back from the table and leaves. I hear her door slam.

“That was mature,” Connor says. When I start to slide my chair away from the table, he rolls his eyes. “No, Mom, don’t go talk to her. She’ll be okay. Trust me. She’s just pissed off at me.”

“Just because of the gun range? Or something else?”

He shrugs, gaze on his food, and I know there’s more to it, but sometimes the kids need to work it out without me in the middle. I just shake my head and finish my pizza. We wrap up Lanny’s last slice and put it in the fridge.

Sure enough, she shows up when we’re loading the car for the trip to the range. I say hello, she silently takes the back seat, arms folded, face a stone mask. It’s unsettling, because I can see the shadow of the adult she’s becoming. There’s nothing dramatic about her just now. She’s centered, even in her disapproval.

Please stay my baby. Just a little while longer. Please.

Connor, oblivious, calls shotgun, which leaves Sam to slide into the back next to Lanny. When Connor and I get in the front, I check my daughter in the rearview mirror. Sam’s leaning over and asking her something in a calm, quiet voice; I see her lose a little of her stiffness as she answers. He puts his arm around her in a half hug.

And just like that, she’s okay. It breaks my heart that I don’t know how to do that anymore with her, make it all . . . fine. We sometimes clash like mismatched gears, my daughter and me. I know that’s normal, but it feels like failure, and it makes me want desperately to make it right.

Vee’s waiting at the curb when I pull the SUV in, and Sam gets out to let her in to sit between him and Lanny. She climbs in encumbered with a battered old black satchel, and she seems wired, as usual. “Cool, cool, cool,” she says, and wiggles in the seat as she gets comfortable. “This is going to be fun! Hey, Lantagirl.”

“Hey,” Lanny says. She’s relaxed a little in Vee’s presence, at least. “What’s in the bag?”

Vee reaches in and pulls out a far-too-large-for-her semiautomatic. I feel a kick start of urgent, wild adrenaline. A nightmare lurches into motion in my brain. I imagine Vee’s finger tightening on that trigger, a bullet firing through the seat, my son bleeding.

“Drop it!” Sam’s shout is sudden and shocking in the confines of the SUV, and she puts the gun down on top of the satchel and raises her hands high. “Jesus, Vee. Never do that.” He takes the gun, carefully pointing it toward the SUV’s floor, and checks it over. “Loaded,” he says. “One in the chamber. Vera—” His tone is grim and angry. He methodically ejects the cartridge that’s under the hammer, then takes out the magazine.

“What? It’s in case that asshole letter guy comes creepin’ up!” We’re all staring at her, even Lanny. Vee hunches in on herself, and grabs the made-safe gun back from Sam when he offers it. She shoves it into the satchel along with the magazine and loose bullet. “I’m just tryin’ to protect myself is all.” Her rural Tennessee accent has come back thick. “Wouldn’ta shot y’all or nothin’.”

“Accidents happen,” I say. “And you need trigger discipline. We’ll go over all that once we get to the range.” My heart’s still hammering, my hands unsteady, but I take a couple of deep breaths and glance over at Connor before I put the vehicle in gear. “We’re going to get you a gun case.”

She mutters something under her breath, and I doubt it’s complimentary, but I’m focused on my son. He’s staring straight ahead, and I see the hard shine of his eyes. “Connor,” I say gently. “You all right?”

“Sure,” he says, in a voice utterly devoid of emotion. “Fine, Mom.” He isn’t, but I see him taking slow, regular breaths, and he blinks and smiles. It isn’t totally convincing, but it’s better. “I’ll be fine.”

It hurts. I want to wrap him in cotton and tuck him in bed and never, never let anything hurt him again. But that’s my screaming instincts, not my rational brain. My son has overcome a lot in his young life; he copes with what he can’t control far better than I have. I have to trust him, and trust his therapy process. He chose it. I have to respect that, even if it makes me weep inside.

So we go to the gun range.

It isn’t the comfortable, familiar place Javier operates back at Stillhouse Lake; that one is small and extremely well run, even though it’s a backwoods haven. Former military like Javi don’t tolerate sloppiness.

I don’t love this one nearly as much. It’s large, it’s loud, and in my opinion it’s slipshod on safety processes. But it’s close to us, and if the instructors aren’t the best, Sam and I can teach the kids properly ourselves. After we kit Vee out with the right things to have—a transport case, a small quick-access safe for home, a holster—we go back to the car and get all the weapons we’re going to use: