The Baby Gift. Bethany Campbell
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Nealie. “I just got up. Can you come for breakfast?”
He’d been awake since dawn, waiting for this call. He was showered, shaved, dressed, had been ready for an hour to go to her. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Panda.”
“Maybe you could take me to church.”
He set his jaw. He had never been the churchgoing sort. But he had expected this. “Sure, Panda. I’ll take you.”
“Hurry. Mama’s making something special.”
“I’ll be there in two shakes.”
“Bye, Daddy. I love you.”
“I love you, too, baby.”
He hung up the phone, stood and went to the bathroom mirror. He’d tried this morning to shave off the rest of his beard. The job hadn’t been a complete success.
The upper part of his face was burned and blasted brown by the Siberian snow glare and wind. The lower part seemed city pale in contrast, and he had nicked his chin in two places and his throat in one.
He tried to adjust the collar of his white shirt to cover the scrape on his throat. He wore a black tie, as well. How long since he had worn a tie? Months. Maybe a year. Maybe more.
He put on his parka and picked up his camera case and left the spartan little room.
BRIANA’S BROTHER, Larry, was sitting in his van in the motel lot, parked next to Briana’s empty truck.
Josh swore under his breath. He knew Larry was not there by accident or coincidence. He was waiting to talk, and from his face the conversation would be grim.
Larry got out of the van slowly and deliberately. He was a big man, four inches taller than Josh’s five eleven, at least sixty pounds heavier. He wore a down jacket that made his shoulders look as wide as an ox yoke.
“Hello, Larry,” Josh said. He did not bother pretending to smile.
Neither did Larry. He wore no hat, and his curling hair was like a dull gold flame under the gray sky. “I want to have a few words with you.”
“Fine,” said Josh.
“First,” Larry said, narrowing his eyes to a squint, “I want to know what you’re doing back in Illyria.”
“I came to see my daughter.”
“If you’d stayed here, you could see her all the time,” Larry said.
That’s none of your business, you moron. But Josh tried to quench the flare of his anger. Larry was Briana’s brother, and although she knew his shortcomings, she was protective of him and loved him. He was family.
“I wish things had worked out differently,” Josh said, and this he meant.
“We all do.” Larry’s words came out in a plume like a dragon’s breath.
Josh said, “I hear your family’s growing. There’s going to be another addition. Congratulations.”
“Yeah. And my kids know one thing for sure. I’ll always be there for them. I won’t never go gallivanting off and leave them.”
You’ve got your job, bullyboy. I’ve got mine. Step aside before I want to break your self-satisfied face. Josh kept his expression impassive. “I’m due to meet Nealie. She’s expecting me. Have you had your say?”
Larry stepped more squarely in front of him. “I hear you made my sister cry last night.”
Oh, hell, Josh thought in exasperation. “She didn’t tell you that.”
“No.” Larry crossed his big arms. “My pop went over there last night to make sure she was all right. He said she’d been crying. You’ve got no right to make her do that.”
The blood banged in Josh’s temples. What could he say to this man that wouldn’t widen the breach between them, make everything harder than it already was? Once again, he tried to push anger aside. “I would never willingly hurt your sister. I would cut off my right arm before I’d knowingly cause her pain.”
“You wouldn’t have to cut it off,” Larry said. “Because I’d tear it off. I mean that. You ever hurt that girl again and you’ll answer to me.”
He put out his ungloved hand and pushed Josh’s chest. It was a slight touch, but full of warning. He brought his face closer. “Understand?”
When Josh was growing up in Detroit, if anybody had been foolish enough to push him, the guy would have gotten a mouthful of shattered teeth. Josh was smaller than Larry, but he knew he could flatten him.
What he did was harder. He held up his hands as in a sign of peace. “I understand,” he said. “And I don’t want trouble with you. You’re Briana’s brother and Nealie’s uncle.”
“You remember that,” Larry said. But he stepped aside.
LARRY’S VAN was faster than Briana’s old truck. He beat Josh to the farm by five minutes. When he walked in the door of his house, his wife gave him a disapproving look.
“Well,” she said. “Did you find him?”
“Yeah,” Larry said. “I found him, all right.”
Larry had gone hunting for Josh Morris with a sense of righteousness. He had convinced himself the man was a threat to his sister’s happiness, his father’s health and his family honor.
His father had phoned last night, upset that Briana had been crying. Leo had fretted and dithered and worked himself into a state.
Larry loved his father, but he knew Leo was not a confrontational man. He would never be able to face down somebody like Josh Morris. Larry considered himself the real man of the family, and it was his duty to protect his father and his sister. If he didn’t, it was a blot on his manhood and a blow to his tender self-esteem.
This morning he had risen early. He had watched Briana’s house, waiting for the lights to go on. When Nealie was awake, she would want her father to come, so as soon as Larry saw her bedroom light flicker into life, he’d gone to meet Morris one-on-one.
Glenda crossed her arms over her softly swelling stomach. She was a lovely blond woman, but lately she looked worn. He supposed it was just her pregnancy, some woman thing like that.
“Well?” She said it with a peculiar edge of aggression in her voice.
“Well what?” Larry asked, hanging his jacket on its hall peg.
“What did you say to him?”
Larry turned to face her, feeling smug, the top dog. “I told him never to make my sister cry again. That if he hurt her again, I’d rip his arm off.”
She looked pained. “You didn’t really say that.”
“Yes, I did,” said Larry. “Where are the boys? I’m ready for breakfast.”
“I let them sleep late. I wanted to talk to you.”
He looked at her suspiciously. “So? Talk.”
“I told you last night what I thought. You didn’t pay any attention. I laid awake a long time thinking about it. You should stay out of your sister’s business. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
Larry bristled. “It’s got everything to do with me. It’s family, dammit. He made her cry.”
“You don’t know why she cried,” Glenda argued.
“Because he hurts her feelings,” Larry said. “He gets her all upset.”
“You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s what Pop thinks. And you know Briana. She’s not the crybaby type. She fell out of a tree once when we were kids and broke her arm. She didn’t even sniffle.”