“All right, man.” Seth conceded easily as though he wished he hadn’t opened his mouth in the first place.
“I’m going to start working and save some money and I’ll get there on my own. Now who’s on the list? Who wants to hurt Nell?” Logan asked.
Bishop looked down at the sheet of paper. There were twenty names on the page along with an assigned risk percentage. No wonder the feds had been interested in the kid. This software wouldn’t make cases for them, but it could, when the right information was present, point the way to a list of suspects. He immediately decided to focus on the top three names. They were the only ones with a risk assessment of over sixty percent.
Jim McDonald, Mickey Camden, and Warren Lyle.
“Why no women?” Logan asked, looking over Bishop’s shoulder. It bugged him, but he couldn’t do what he would normally do which was to pop whoever wasn’t respecting his space. Killing a kid for getting too close might break his cover. If Logan’s moms didn’t even want him to curse, they would likely object to his quick, though painless, death.
“Do you know how few women actually plan out killings?” Bishop doubted the perpetrator was a woman. It wasn’t that women couldn’t get pissed off and tear through some shit, but they rarely did it over business.
“Women tend to be moment-of-passion killers,” Seth explained. Logan stared at him. “Sorry, I watch a lot of TV.”
Yeah, Bishop bet the kid did. “I need to take a look at these guys.”
“Do you want me to print out their dossiers?”
“You’re kidding me.” He needed this fucker out in the field. He could get his jobs done in half the time, force Seth to do his paperwork, and sneak off to spend time with Nell.
He couldn’t think like that. Not even in a joking way. He would have a brief time with Nell and then he had to do what he did best—disappear. It could be dangerous for her if he kept up a relationship with someone like Nell. It would be far too easy for one of his numerous enemies to follow him and find out that he had a weakness to exploit. No. Once he left Bliss, he would never come back. Everyone was safer that way.
But before he could leave, he had to make sure she was okay by taking care of whoever wanted to hurt her this time.
There would be a next time, a little voice in his head was whispering to him. He could save her this time, but she wasn’t about to give up the crusades. Women like Nell got more active—not less—as time went by. Sure, she would eventually get married and probably have a kid or two, but she wouldn’t give up trying to change the world, and there were a lot of people out there who were perfectly happy with the world just the way it was.
Nell would always be in danger.
“So do you want me to print it, Mr. Flanders?” The Stark kid was looking up at him, a curious expression on his face.
“Yeah, yeah sure.” The printer began humming again, and Bishop was left feeling unsettled.
There was a brief knock, and the door came open. Teeny Green waltzed in carrying a tray of cookies. “There’s some fresh milk if you boys want some.” She left the tray on the desk. Logan and Seth immediately dug into the cookies, but Bishop’s mind wasn’t on his stomach.
When the printout was done, he grabbed it off the printer and got ready to leave. The quicker he solved this, the quicker he could be on his way. Nell was dangerous. She was dangerous to herself, and she was definitely dangerous to his sanity. He needed to leave as soon as possible. A man could get comfortable in a place like Bliss, but Bishop had made a decision long ago. He could call no place home. He had to stay sharp, and he couldn’t do it in a place filled with lovely brunettes and women who made homemade cookies and apple cider.
He nodded to the boys and started to make his way out. There was something too homey about the small cabin. Everywhere he looked he saw a family and their lives lovingly documented in photos and award certificates and mementoes. He couldn’t help but notice an old family photo that had been framed and mounted on the wall of the living room. It showed two women and a baby boy. He recognized Teeny Green, younger though no less radiant. She was wearing a white dress with a lacy collar as she smiled at the camera. A baby probably no older than eight months sat in her lap, his mouth opened in a big toothless grin. A stout-looking woman stood behind them, her hands protectively on Teeny’s shoulders. She was a bit grim, but something about the picture fascinated him. Though the woman in the back wasn’t smiling, there was a pride in her stance. This was her family.
Lesbian couples might be accepted in big cities these days, but in small-town Colorado two decades ago? What kind of courage had those women had to start a life for themselves here? What kind of fortitude had gone into building this small cabin?
“My wife’s name is Marie.” Teeny walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She sighed as she looked at the picture. “I know a lot of families like to keep a current portrait up, but I like to look back and remember where we came from. I love this picture. It was the first one we had done. A travelling photographer took it. We couldn’t find a studio who would take it for us. Things were a little less tolerant in this part of the world back then. Bliss didn’t have a portrait studio, so we had to make our own.”
He was curious. “Why would you stay here? You could have gone to San Francisco or New York. People would have accepted you.”
She shook her head. “This was our home, and here in Bliss, we never had a lick of trouble. We were pioneers in our way. Marie’s family came out here from back East. Her family’s held this land for almost a hundred years. Besides, if we all go and hide in the city, no one would ever get to know us.”
That was the point. “And they would never get to hurt you.”
“Nothing good in life ever came without a struggle. When Marie and I opened our store, there were people from some other towns who said they would never buy anything from people like us. We almost went under that first year, and then the Circle G started buying all their supplies from us even though it would have been less expensive to get them from one of the big stores in another town. And Albert Lang walked in and bought every piece of fishing equipment we had. You have to understand, Al was a judge, and he was the head of a very wealthy and influential family. He should have been one of the people trying to push us out, but he just told me to hang on for a year or two and before long, no one would care because we would just be a part of the community. And he was right. The Harpers finally started buying from us and before we knew it, Max and Rye were coming in and begging for treats and playing with our kid. Things don’t change unless you make them change, Mr. Flanders. You can’t do that by running away every time the going gets tough.”
A low voice broke through the moment. “No. You do it with the business end of a shotgun. You want to know how to change people’s minds, shove a shotgun in their gut and then see how fast they suddenly don’t care what your sexual orientation is.”
The stern lady from the photograph walked through the cabin door. She was as broad as Teeny was slender. And she damn straight looked like a woman who could wield a shotgun. “Who the hell are you?”
Finally, someone he could relate to. “Professor Henry Flanders.”
Marie frowned. “Is he here for Seth? That boy always seems to have some intellectual types sniffing around him.”
Teeny wagged a finger her wife’s way. “Be more polite. People are going to think you don’t have an ounce of manners, Marie Warner.”