LITMIR.BIZ

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microwave pinged. Gingerly, April retrieved the bag and peeled it open, releasing a gust of steam. She poured the contents into a glass bowl and then put the bowl on the table. Joanna grabbed a handful and crammed it in her mouth. That poor woman, April thought, concerned. What was the baby doing to her? It looked as though she’d never eaten food before.

      “The truth is,” April told her, “I just want to get Matthew back in school. Right now, that’s not happening.”

      “Then make it happen,” Joanna said around another mouthful of popcorn. She dug in her pocket and produced a few quarters. “Be a doll and get me some peanut M&Ms out of the machine there, will you? Gotta balance the salty with the sweet.”

      April fed the quarters into the machine and pulled the lever. She didn’t know a lot about pregnancy cravings, but M&Ms and popcorn? Gross.

      “Put ‘em right in the bowl,” Joanna said. “I like it when they get all warm and melt-y. Now, look, April. Do you know what your problem is?”

      Please tell me. Please let there be something I can do right away that will fix everything.

      “You have Youngest Child Syndrome,” Joanna said. “Plain as day. Well, except for the attention-seeking behaviors. You’re the opposite of that. And the risk taking. You don’t do much of that either.”

      “Maybe they don’t have a name for what’s wrong with me,” April said sadly. Or how I can’t get one foul-mouthed kid to go to school.

      Joanna twisted the cap off her water. “You can do this. Have Sheriff Murphy take you back out to the McBride place tomorrow. I’ll bet it goes a whole lot better this time.”

      Felicia Hewitt came into the kitchen to grab a soda. While Felicia chatted with Joanna about pregnancy and babies, April pictured driving out to Brandon’s house and thought, There is no possible way this will go well.

      If she had to be honest, April admitted to herself, she wasn’t just worried.

      She was terrified.

      Chapter 5

      Brandon told himself he was going to find April, make nice, and talk her out of escalating everything. But as soon as he sped through the back roads of Cuervo, opening up the Harley’s throttle and relishing its throaty howl, it wasn’t the case he was thinking about.

      It was April.

      She’d probably never even been on a Harley. Hell, she hadn’t been on a lot of things. Why that interested him, he didn’t know. Had he ever slept with a virgin? Hard to remember. Maybe back in the beginning, but that was years ago. It was all kind of a blur.

      What wasn’t a blur was the road, which stretched out endlessly before him, with no windows to block his view, no car doors to prevent him from enjoying the rush of intense freedom. Everything came pouring over him at once: the sun devils dancing on the horizon, the shock of blue Texas sky, the lane stripes that his Fat Boy split beneath its wide front tire.

      A good ride put you into a state of hypnosis, where you were everywhere and nowhere at the same moment. The muffled roar of the wind, the sharp green smell of the grass, the power of the bike beneath him were the closest things to God he’d ever known.

      Working in an office, in a suit, punching a time clock…no way. Hell, he’d rather go back to foster care. But that brought him back to Matthew…and to April.

      So now he was thinking about April again.

      In a town the size of Cuervo, it shouldn’t take him long to find out where she lived. Going to the Raymond County Child Protective Services offices was out of the question. Just thinking about it made him uptight. No, he needed to catch her off guard. Alone. Without Deputy Dumbass hanging around.

      Brandon had sweet talked Matthew’s Spanish teacher into giving him a passing grade last year. He’d had her speaking all kinds of Spanish in the back seat of her car.

      Sometimes you had to take one for the team.

      He’d try the Double Aces first, which was where he’d last seen April. As he approached on his bike, it looked as though the bar was already packed with the happy hour crowd. Bruce Springsteen wailed out of the jukebox. He found the owner, Jimmy, wiping down the bar with a rag.

      “What’ll you have?” Jimmy asked.

      “A shot of the good stuff.” Brandon took the nearest barstool. A smoking hot brunette was giving him the come hither, but there was no time to chase down that dead end.

      Jimmy held up a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Good enough?”

      The guy was a real charmer. Brandon waited until he finished pouring the shot before saying, “I’m looking for April Roby. Figured you might know where she lives.”

      Jimmy had fists the size of Christmas hams and a face that looked as though someone had lit it on fire and put it out with an ax. When Jimmy scowled at him, Brandon felt his muscles tense out of pure reflex.

      “Now what business does a fella like you have with a nice girl like April?” Jimmy said.

      Brandon glanced around the bar. If he punched Jimmy now, he might have to take on twenty or thirty other guys. Those were bad odds, even by his standards.

      He tossed back the shot, feeling it burn all the way down to his stomach. Casually, he peeled off a few bills and said, “Guess I’ll just have to find her myself.”

      As Brandon turned to leave, the dark-haired woman gave him a playful smile. “I know where she lives.”

      He glanced at Jimmy to see if he’d overheard her, but Jimmy was busy manhandling the blender. The woman slid a cocktail olive off a tiny plastic spear with her teeth and gazed at Brandon with the kind of smoldering invitation he recognized because it always went straight to his crotch.

      “You were here the other night,” she said. “I saw you leaving with some skanky blond chick.”

      Brandon didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. All he had to do was wait for it…

      “Name’s Roxanne.” She put her hand out for a shake, but he ignored that, too. He hated handshakes. They were things a douche in a suit would do.

      “Oooookay.” Flushing, she withdrew her hand and went back to toying with her olives. “Why are you looking for a boring little wallflower like April?”

      He smiled. “Maybe I like wallflowers.”

      “April working a case for you or something?”

      Now she was just messing around, trying to get more than he would give. On a flare of irritation, he said, “Do you know where she lives or are we just going to sit here all night asking questions?”

      Her dark eyes widened. “Impatient much? April lives on Tilden and Decatur. White house with a porch. It’s on the corner so you can’t miss it.”

      Brandon went outside, climbed on his bike, turned the ignition switch and the fuel tap, teased open the choke, and then gave the throttle two full twists. The Harley growled to life. There were two other motorcycles next to his, but he didn’t recognize them. His crowd tended to show up later than this.

      He took off, wondering where Tilden Street was. All he saw was a fancy movie theater called the Regal, a water tower on stilts, and a storefront that had the words Sweet Dreams: Home of the UFO Cake in fancy gold letters.

      People in Cuervo were even weirder than he thought.

      Exiting Main Street, he headed toward what looked like a residential area. It didn’t take him long to find April’s house.

      When he saw it, everything about her made sense. Not the baggy skirt and low heels, because nothing made sense about that. But just a look at where she’d come from told him who she was.

      The house was pure Texas. It looked like the kind of place that had Halloween decorations in October and a twinkling tree in the window come

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