Justified (16 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

For twenty-one years I had attended Trapp church, but not until I stood on the sidewalk Wednesday night and watched JohnScott walking toward me did the place feel like home.

In the back of my mind, Tyler's accusations about the coach still prickled uncomfortably, but I pushed them away, choosing to remember JohnScott's assurances instead. My face warmed. JohnScott certainly didn't act like he planned to abandon me.

It surprised me to see Clyde following close behind him, and I wondered if JohnScott realized how bringing the ex-convict back to this congregation might ruffle a few feathers. Then again, maybe JohnScott viewed it as a welcome diversion from his own presence.

“I'm impressed,” I said. “When you dared me to come to church with you in Slaton, I didn't really think you'd follow through on your end of the bargain.”

“I couldn't let you show me up.”

“I might be a wild card, though,” Clyde said. “If it gets too sticky, I'll wait for you in the car.”

“Is it that bad?” I asked.

Clyde shuffled across the tiny foyer. “They weren't any too cordial last year when I dropped in on them.”

“But a lot has changed,” I said.

“That's a fact,” Clyde said, “but I don't want to push.” The large man looked down at his feet, suddenly appearing smaller and more timid. “Anyway, I've got my reasons for trying it again.”

Three elderly men stood near the coatrack, and when they noticed Clyde and JohnScott, they studied them intently for a few moments before one of them, Lee Roy Goodnight, broke away from the group and approached us.

He leaned heavily on a wooden cane and extended his other hand toward JohnScott. “Coach Pickett, good season so far.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Wouldn't hurt to give Quinten Snodgrass a tad more playing time, though. The boys down at the feed store are figuring it could make a difference.”

The coach nodded as though considering the suggestion, but I knew what he was thinking. Quinten Snodgrass was second string for a reason.

“I'll keep that in mind, Lee Roy. Thank you for the advice.”

The old man ran his tongue over his lips, then worked his mouth as though to recapture the moisture. “I'd heard you were attending over in Slaton, but it's good to see you here. I'm glad to know you've found the Lord.”

JohnScott nodded. “It's good to be here, Lee Roy.”

“Clyde.” Lee Roy extended his hand again, but when Clyde shook it, Lee Roy seemed to hold on to him for longer than necessary. “I'm awful glad you're here, son. Awful glad.”

“Thank you, sir.”

That seemed to be all the interaction Lee Roy could handle at the moment, because he turned and hobbled down the aisle to his usual position in a front pew.

“So far, so good.” I didn't point out that the other two men by the coatrack were frowning at Clyde, clearly befuddled as to how they might welcome their celebrity coach without soiling themselves through interaction with the ex-convict.

As I started toward a pew where Ruthie sat, Clyde cleared his throat. “If it's all the same to you, I'll sit back here.”

“Then we'll sit back here too,” JohnScott said.

“No, now you two go on down there with Ruthie and them. That's where you need to be. But me? I belong back here.” He shrugged. “For now anyways.”

JohnScott hesitated, then nodded almost imperceptibly and turned to lead me down the aisle. When we reached the pew, he moved aside so I could sit next to Ruthie. “Hey, little cousin,” he said.

“JohnScott?” Ruthie said. “Don't look now, but you're sitting in the middle of the Trapp church.” She rested her palm against her cheek in mock alarm. “And you said you'd never come to church with me.”

He leaned toward her and whispered. “I didn't come with you. I came with Fawn.”

“Actually, you came with Clyde,” I corrected.

“Clyde's here too?” Ruthie looked over her shoulder until she caught his attention, then crossed her eyes at him. “What next?”

I asked myself the same question every time JohnScott and I were together. Not because of anything he did or said but because of who he was, what he represented, and the perplexing discovery that I wanted him for my own. Badly.

Right before the devotional started, my mother sat down on the pew in front of us, followed soon after by Milla Cunningham and Pamela Sanders, who sat on either side of her, sandwiching her between their goodness. Mother glanced back at me and smiled faintly, then nodded at JohnScott.

When she turned back around, my lungs seemed to have stopped working, and I had to consciously inhale and exhale. Mother sat
right in front of me
. Not on the far side of the room, not alone on a pew, but right next to Milla Cunningham. And she had greeted me silently.

And … she had acknowledged JohnScott.

Ruthie elbowed me, and JohnScott leaned over and whispered, with his lips so near my ear, his breath tickled, “I take it that's not typical behavior.”

I flattened my palms in my lap, patting my thighs nervously. My heart didn't know what to do with the sensations racing through it, but after a few more inhalations, I calmed my pulse and let my hands fall to the wooden pew on either side of me. When I last saw my mother at the feed store, she had openly told me she loved me—not something our family expressed verbally—and now this.

JohnScott's hand rested on the pew next to mine, and as Dodd stepped behind the podium to give his devotional talk, the coach touched the side of my hand with his pinky. Not a caress, but definitely a statement. A silent expression of support. I dropped my gaze to the pew, not touching him back, just looking at our hands side by side against the stained wood. His rough knuckles and my pale fingers, side by side, as though he were waiting for me to be ready to reach out.

Dodd spoke on the Damascus road conversion of Paul, and I couldn't help but wonder if he had been saving the sermon until Clyde Felton showed up. Or JohnScott. But when he said a short prayer at the end, I realized he just as likely could have intended the story for my benefit. Even though I had been raised within the walls of the church building, in the past several months, I had experienced as dramatic a transformation as the coach or the convict, and I certainly was just as sinful.

When Dodd finished his prayer, I kept my head bowed.

Lord, forgive me. Please. You seem to have blessed me with a strong Christian man I don't deserve, yet my prayers have been selfish. That was wrong. Please change me, not him. Make me what JohnScott needs.

 

After the devotional, Clyde, JohnScott, and I ended up on the small front lawn outside the church, just as we had in Slaton, and I decided I wouldn't mind making it a habit.

Clyde kicked at gravel on the edge of the sidewalk. “I know y'all pondered this a spell, but I want you to know I think the two of you are a good thing.”

JohnScott looked at me and gestured to Clyde. “We talk.”

“Oh.” I nodded, not fully accepting that JohnScott and Clyde were good enough friends to discuss me. The man seemed nice enough, and he certainly knew a lot about snakes, but something about him still seemed … off.

“This town's unmerciful when it comes to gossip.” Clyde shook his head. “But maybe they'll go light on the two of you.”

“I don't know about that.” JohnScott chuckled. “The head coach and a pregnant girl?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Naw, they'll have a heyday with this one.”

My stomach turned. “You guys aren't making me feel any better.”

“It'll be all right.” Clyde leaned against JohnScott's truck. “I should know.”

I lowered my eyes, smoothing my shirt.

“You think it was bad when I came back?” Clyde chuckled. “You should have heard it before I left.”

I answered without thinking. “What happened?”

JohnScott coughed, and I immediately felt like an idiot.

Clyde's smile was gentle. “That's all right, Fawn. I was talking in riddles, dodging the truth of it. But so you know the particulars, I stayed in jail in Lubbock before my sentence came down. I had a couple friends who would visit me there. We tried to make sense of things.” He shrugged. “But when I transferred to South Texas, we lost touch.”

“So they weren't your friends anymore.” It angered me to think of those friends turning their backs on him.

“Aw, nothing like that. They got busy with their lives.” He squinted toward the street, where Lynda Turner passed by in her hatchback. “Just a big tangle, and it was easier—better—for them to let it go.”

JohnScott looked at him quizzically. “Who were those friends? Anybody I know?”

Clyde shifted, putting his weight on his other foot. “Now Coach, don't tempt me to start rumors. You got enough gossip to worry about.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

Clyde shrugged. “You about ready to go?”

“Yep, we've had enough excitement for one night.” JohnScott's gaze fell to my lips, and he chuckled. “Wouldn't it be something if I kissed you? Here?” He turned away, still laughing.

As I walked to the back of the parking lot, I realized Clyde had become one of the more interesting people in my life, and I wondered if I would ever stop underestimating him. Whatever had happened all those years ago, it surely wasn't enough to send him to prison for twenty years. He just didn't seem the type.

A vehicle pulled up behind me as I unlocked the Mustang, and when I turned, my heart faltered. My father had come to pick up my mother, and she sat in the passenger seat of his truck, looking worried.

He slid out of the cab without killing the engine. He frowned at the Mustang, then made a slow sweep of his eyes toward JohnScott's truck farther down. “What's he doing here?” he demanded. “Tyler's been telling me how the coach follows you all over town. Is he harassing you?”

“I asked him to come.” I started to leave it at that but decided I'd better give him some sort of explanation. “A few nights ago, JohnScott took care of a rattlesnake on my front porch. It's the third one we've found out there, and I'm getting a little nervous.” I glanced at my mother.

“
We've
found three snakes?” His face screwed into a sneer.

I looked away from him and crossed my arms. People at the side of the building were beginning to notice.

I could see my dad out of the corner of my eye, staring me down, waiting for me to crumble, but when I didn't, an exasperated rush of air pelted from his lips. “You're with the football coach.” He shook his head. “You'd think you could set your sights a little higher than that.”

A pain shot between my legs and subsided immediately. I recognized it as one of the symptoms Velma had told me to expect—something about my cervix—but the brief intensity caught me off guard, and I inhaled to steady myself. “Coach Pickett's a good friend.”

“A good friend?” His voice rose. “If he was a good friend, he wouldn't spend hours and hours at your house. Anybody in the area could see him turn down your drive and let their imaginations fill in the rest.”

He was right. That's how things worked in our little town. Two cars in a parking lot or a driveway or behind a store. And gossip would run rampant. “That's not how it is.” I hated the whine in my voice, not to mention the lie.

He spit in the gravel between us. “The football coach. Seriously?” His gaze dropped to my waist. “You're just like your mother.”

I blinked. I expected him to degrade me and to insult JohnScott, but I didn't expect him to say anything about Mother.
“What?”
I glanced at her sitting on the edge of the passenger seat, and I wondered if she could hear us over the engine. When she shook her head slightly, I realized she had rolled her window down. I turned back to my dad. “What do you mean?”

Clyde's voice called from behind me. “You're right, Neil. She's a lot like her momma.” The ex-convict strode toward us. “Only stronger. Harder to push around. I reckon you noticed that, though.”

My father spoke through clenched teeth. “Stay away from my family. You have no business with us.”

“I got no business with Susan,” Clyde corrected. “And I don't bother her.”

I stepped between them. “I didn't even know you knew each other.”

“Oh sure, Fawn.” Clyde spoke smoothly compared to my father. “We graduated high school together, back in the day.”

“We don't know each other at all,” snapped my father.

Clyde sighed and glanced into my dad's truck.

“Keep your eyes off my wife.”

The huge man raised his palms, and I thought of a powerful lion lying next to a herd of deer, not hungry. “Don't make an issue where there ain't one,” he said.

“I won't make an issue as long as you stay away from Fawn.”