The Ranger - Ace Atkins [71]
“Wesley said it’s resolved. Okay? Do you mind?”
She pushed at the door.
“Okay. This is where it’s getting a little confusing to me,” Quinn said, pulling his foot back and smiling. “You show up at my uncle’s farm last night, worried out of your mind. You basically beg me to go over to that peckerwood compound, blaming me if anything happened to Luke. Does this picture ring true?”
She held her arms around her waist, thin T-shirt blowing in the cold, her skin looking pale in the fading light. He could hear the buzzer going off on the stove. “I got to go,” she said. “Shit’s burning.”
“You tell Luke that if he’s a stand-up guy, he’ll file those charges. Those shitbags might have killed us all last night.”
“He’ll do what’s best.”
“I bet.”
“Luke is the most stand-up man I’ve ever met,” she said, jaw clenching. “I don’t have time for this. It’s cold and I’m not wearing shoes.”
He touched her shoulder. “Since when does Luke work with Johnny Stagg?”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“Stagg serves on his board.”
“Stagg serves on the board for the electric company, too. He’s a county supervisor. That’s just what he does. Damn it. Let me go.”
“Stagg just called in a big favor for getting that hospital certificate.”
“You’ll have to talk to Luke about that instead of bullying me.”
“People wonder why I left this place.”
“I sure as hell don’t,” Anna Lee said, slamming the front door.
The glass rattled, and a pine wreath fell to the ground. There was a lot of garland on the porch, strung in with Christmas lights and magnolia leaves, plastic shaped like flowers. Quinn recalled the old Victorian as being a ghost house when he was a kid, a big vacant shell where you’d step up and throw rocks at the window or sneak girls inside to slip a little to drink or smoke dope and make out.
Quinn stepped up to the glass door to knock.
But he dropped his hand, changing his mind.
There was a small playground across from the Baptist church where Quinn sat with his mother, watching Jason navigate a small fort, a couple slides, and a climbing wall. Up and down, back and forth, jumping and scrambling. Falling and rolling. He always got back up on his feet and cried only once, and only then because one of the swings had been wrapped high above him and he couldn’t reach it. Quinn got to his feet and unraveled it for him, Jason jumping into the seat and holding on to the chains.
“You eat lunch?” his mother asked.
Quinn shook his head.
“We could drop by the Sonic. How about a burger and a milk shake?”
Quinn felt for the cell phone in his pocket, checked the number, and saw it was Anna Lee. He turned off the ringer.
“They could call you back anytime,” she said. “Right?”
He nodded.
“Did you go over this year?”
“Just for a couple weeks.”
“It’s not the time. It’s what y’all were up to.”
“It was boring, just some recon stuff.”
His mother nodded, not believing him, and walked over to the fort, waiting for Jason to navigate the steep edge. Jason found a way out from the bar, teetered around the top, held on to the handrail, and then for some reason—Quinn hoped it was that Jason knew that his grandmother was under him—he just let go with a high-pitched laugh and fell into her arms. She let him go, and he ran over to a metal elephant that had been set on a heavy-duty spring, about breaking it as he rocked back and forth.
“Thursday?”
“They gave me a week,” Quinn said. “That was generous.”
“The U.S. Army can stand to do without you for a week.”
“Just how long has Anna Lee been coming over, helping with Jason and all that?”
“I can get someone else. There’s a little girl at church who’s sweet and pretty reasonable.”
“So you’re full-time now. With Jason.”
“It’s temporary.”
“You sure?”
“Caddy is looking for work in Memphis, staying with a friend, trying to get into a stable situation. She said she’s looking for good schools right now. She’s made a real change, Quinn.”
Quinn took a breath. He folded his hands in his lap, rubbing them together, placing them back into his jacket pockets. “Shit, it’s cold.”
“Does it bother