90 Days (Prairie Town Book 2) (22 page)

     “Three years.” Her mother whispered.

     “Three years…” The rage in Lydia’s voice caused Laney to take a step back.  Whatever was about to happen, it wasn’t good.  Her sister had every right to be angry—she would have been pissed, too—and if Lydia started swinging, she didn’t want to get hit.  “Three years!”

     “Lydia, I’m so sorry.” Mrs. McIntosh stood up and quickly approached her, reaching out to grab her shoulders.  “Honey, we didn’t want you to worry.  There wasn’t anything you could have done differently if you—”

     “I could have been here!” Lydia cried, her eyes glossing over with tears before they began to fall.  “How could you not tell me?” She glared at Laney.  “Any of you.  How could you keep it from me?”

     “It was my decision.” Her father finally said, his eyes remaining on the table.  “I didn’t want to worry you, Lydia.  I knew you’d come running back and you weren’t ready to come home yet.  Finally becoming who you are is what was most important at the time.  I was fine.”

     “Why do you people keep saying that to me?” Lydia shrugged her mother’s hands away and stared at her as if she’d been burned.  “You think that’s all that mattered to me?  Transitioning?  You think I couldn’t have put it on hold to come home?  You didn’t even call me when Laney tried to kill herself! Do you know how shitty that makes me feel?  I literally
just
found out about that, and now this?  Do you really think I care so little for you?”

     “Honey, we don’t think that at all.” Mrs. McIntosh sobbed.  “Your father just didn’t want to pull you back here when you had so much going on.  If he’d gotten worse…”

     “You would have told me, right?” Lydia’s tone became bitter, laden with resentment.  “Well, I’m glad to know where I stand with this ‘family’.”

     “Lydia, wait.” Her mother tried to grab her as she turned to leave the room, but stopped when her husband spoke again.

     “Let her go.” He murmured, pinching at the bridge of his nose.  “Just let her get it out of her system.”

     They all fell silent as the screen door slammed shut and Laney wanted to disappear.

     “I’m sorry.” She whispered, shaking her head.  “I didn’t mean to… I thought…”

     “It’s okay.” Mr. McIntosh held the paper up for her to take.  “She needed to know anyways.  But this… I don’t reckon I fully understand what’s going on, Laney.  What do you know about it?”

     Glancing at Aggie briefly before accepting the piece of paper, Laney unfolded it and began to read.

    
PRAIRIE TOWN WILL KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR TRANNY FREAK.

     GO TO HELL.

    
Letting the paper fall from between her fingertips, she swallowed down the bile threatening to escape.  The room began to spin and she had to steady herself against the corner of the table as her father’s hand touched her arm.

     “Laney? Are you okay?”

     “No.” She replied in a trembling voice.  “No, Dad.  I’m not freaking okay.”

     Aggie bent down to retrieve the note and as her eyes scanned it, her face turned red.

     “What the hell is wrong with this bitch?” She asked through clenched teeth.  “When will enough be enough?”

     “You know who is doing this?” Mrs. McIntosh sounded surprised.

     “We have an idea.” Aggie replied.  “Or, well, Jebson has an idea.”

     “Jebson?” Mrs. McIntosh’s eyes widened.  “You mean whoever wrote this is connected to my boy, somehow?”

     “He thinks it’s an ex-girlfriend.” Aggie replied, her gaze meeting Laney’s.  She mouthed ‘sorry’ and moved into a seat, resting an elbow against the table.  “Apparently she accidentally discovered Lydia’s past when he picked up a prescription for her and forgot it was in the car.  This girl, Alisha, or Mia, whatever, must have seen it or something.  But I don’t know why she’s doing it.”

     “That’s awful!” Mrs. McIntosh gasped.

     “No one told me about an ex-girlfriend.” Laney frowned.  “I didn’t even know Jeb was seeing anyone.  When did she supposedly see the prescription?”

     “Months ago.” Aggie shrugged.  “It wasn’t long after Lydia moved here.”

    
And he didn’t fucking tell me.
  Laney’s nostrils flared. 
And they didn’t tell me about this girl being a possible suspect.  What the hell? Callum was supposed to involve me.

     Crossing her arms over her chest and rolling her eyes, Laney exited the kitchen and made her way towards the stairs.  She’d honesty had enough of this day.  Her family was still as dysfunctional as it was on the day Lydia left.  Maybe it was even worse.

     Just as her foot hit the bottom step, she heard shouting from outside and immediately retracted. 

     That wasn’t just shouting.  It was a fight.

     She shoved the screen door open and was surprised to see her brother and sister screaming at one another. 

     “Of course I didn’t tell you, damn it!” Jeb narrowly escaped a smack to the head and whirled around like a big lanky ninja, gripping Lydia’s wrist.  “Stop trying to hit me!”

     “You deserve to be hit!” Lydia screeched.  “You all deserve to be hit for hiding this from me.  How could you?  He’s my dad, too!”

     “He didn’t want us to tell you.  For fuck’s sake, Lydia, would you calm down?” He pinned her arms to her sides and gripped her in a bear hug, breathing heavily as he glanced up at Laney.  “A little help here?”

     She didn’t know what to do.  She was like a deer caught in headlights as she watched Lydia’s foot slam down against Jeb’s.  He howled like an injured coyote and released her, hopping up and down on one foot.

     “For…shit…Lydia! Damn it!”

     “I am so sick of the lies!” Lydia cried, her eyes wild and her hair a mess.  She was clearly upset—Laney understood—but she was letting her anger get out of control.  “Everybody in this house lies to me.  Why?  Why do you keep things from me?”

     “Why do you keep things from
me
?” Laney suddenly blurted, causing her brother and sister to stare at her.

     “What are you talking about?” Lydia wiped at her eyes in frustration and sniffled.

     “The voice mail.  The text message.  And now the note?”

     “What note?” Jeb asked breathlessly, leaning over and resting his hands against his knees.

     “The note Mom and Dad received.” Laney frowned.  “That’s some ex-girlfriend you’ve got there, Jeb.  Glad to know she exists.”

     “Aw, hell, Laney.” He groaned, shaking his head.  “She’s… she’s not even important, okay?  She never was.  You don’t understand what’s going on.”

     “That’s precisely my point!  I would know if you would stop treating me like a baby and tell me stuff every once in a while.”

     “Can we not do this right now?” He straightened to his full height and glared at them.  “Honestly, there’s enough going on without you two ganging up on me.  So I didn’t tell you, Laney—I’m sorry.  And yeah, we didn’t tell you about Dad’s heart condition, Lydia, and that’s unforgivable. We couldn’t find the right time to tell you, so we decided to wait.  Then all of this started happening…”

     A pained expression came over his face and he gazed up at the sky, licking his lips and sighing. 

     “I’m sorry I’m such a shitty ass brother, okay?  I got selfish.  I was afraid you’d blame yourself or something and that’s not true at all.  You’ve been gone for practically my whole life and I just…” His voice cracked and he turned away from them, obviously struggling with whatever he was feeling at the moment.

     Laney slowly stepped off the porch and approached him, reaching a hand out to touch his arm.

     “I just…didn’t want you to run from us or something.” He finally turned his head to peer at Lydia and there were tears in his eyes, honest-to-goodness tears.

     Laney had never seen him cry before, not like this, and it crippled her.

     “Why would I run?” Lydia asked in a choked whisper.  “Jeb, you’re my family.  This is my home.  How can you think that?”

     “Who would blame you if you left, huh?” He asked sorrowfully.  “You said you were leaving the moment you arrived and I wracked my brain, trying to figure out how I could make you want to stay.  Imagine how relieved I was when you fell in love with my best friend.”

     “Jeb…”

     “I’m a selfish asshole, Lydia.  Okay?  Yeah, it was scary when Dad got sick and I would have given
anything
to have you here, but we all knew what that surgery meant to you.  You needed to have time to settle into your new skin.  We all wanted you to be happy, and now?  Here you are,”—he motioned to her—“just as beautiful as I knew you would be.  We didn’t do it the right way, Lyds, but we did it our way.  And our way is the only way we know.  So go ahead and beat the hell out of me if that’ll make you feel better, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now and I’ve got a crazy bitch to find before she has a chance to ruin your life.”

     Gnawing on her bottom lip and watching through blurred vision as Lydia hugged Jeb, Laney pushed her own feelings aside, deciding they weren’t as important right now.

     What mattered was Lydia and Jeb reconciling and working together to bring down this Alisha/Mia girl before she could destroy Lydia’s life.  She’d do whatever it took to help them, even if it meant being left out altogether.

     With that thought, she turned around and quietly slipped upstairs.

     She was used to being invisible. 

Chapter 12

Benji

     “I still don’t understand how I’m supposed to be involved.” He pinned the phone between his ear and shoulder, rearranging a shelf of books that some girls had carelessly put back.  “You
want
me to distract Laney while you take care of this?  I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lydia.”

     “But it’s the only idea I have right now.” Lydia sighed on the other end.  “She can’t handle this right now, Ben;
I
can barely handle it, let alone her.  There’s too much.”

     “I get that, I do, but she’s your sister, Lydia.  She wants to help.  I thought she made that pretty obvious when she called Callum about the text message.”

     “She told you about that?”

     “She may have mentioned it.” He returned to the cash register to begin counting it down, glancing at the clock.  He could leave in a few minutes and he already knew where he was going, regardless of if Lydia wanted him to be there or not.  “I just don’t think this is fair.  Have you and Jeb considered how she feels about it?”

     “I know how she feels about it and I know she wants to help, but it’s not her mess to clean up.”

     “It’s not
yours
either.  Jeb dated the crazy cow, right?”

     “Well, yes, but—”

     “You still want to help him figure it out anyway, right?”

     “Because she’s threatening
me,
not Laney.”

     “You’re impossible.” He rolled his eyes.  “You just don’t get it, do you?”

     “I’m just trying to protect her.  She’s fragile, Ben.”

     “She’s strong, too.  You don’t give her enough credit.” The sound of a car door shutting caught his attention and he frowned.  “Are you going
somewhere
?”

     “Yes.” Lydia sounded so tired.  He supposed he couldn’t blame her for that, after everything she’d been through.  Adding a fight with Jeb onto the list of ‘fuckery’ she had was surely taking its toll on her. “We’re going to Tennessee to find Alisha—Mia. Whatever her name is.  Jeb says that’s where she lives.”

     “So taking an out-of-the-blue trip to the Great Smoky Mountains is suddenly going to solve everything.” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  “What if she’s not there, Lydia?  Is Jeb positive that’s where you’ll find her?”

     “No.  She’s a saleswoman.  She sells insurance for a living and travels from state to state.  That’s how they met.”

     “That’s convenient.”

     “I know.  It’s frustrating as hell, but it’s the best shot we have.  Her home address is listed in a small town in Tennessee.  I need to see if she’s there, Ben.  I need to confront her.”

     “And that really can’t be done over the phone?”

     “Obviously I’ve tried that.” She replied in annoyance.  “Look, I’ve got to go.  We’ve got a long trip ahead of us and—”

     “Who’s ‘we’, exactly?”

     “Callum, Jeb, and myself.  Why?”