Page 113 of Reckoning

“Stop talking and put one of those on my finger fast, before you change your mind,” she said.

He slipped the engagement ring on her finger. “My mind’s been made up about you since first grade. I just didn’t have a name to put with it.”

She crawled up into his lap. “Merry Christmas, Tate Bandy. Don’t mind if I do.”

They made love on the Crown of Thorns quilt, and when it was over, still wrapped in each other’s arms, Tate asked something of her he wasn’t sure she would take.

“I want you to keep your maiden name when we marry. It’s the only option I have left to protect you. You are a wonder in your own right, and wearing my last name will change how people see you. You deserve to be recognized for you…not who you married.”

She hadn’t thought of it like that, but saw his reasoning. “I understand, and I will do that for you. But our children will wear your name with pride, understood?”

He nodded. “Deal. If you want a big wedding, we could do it in Tennessee.”

She was silent. She didn’t have close friends or family and was thinking about having no one to walk her down the aisle. No mother to help her dress. And on that day, Tate’s parents belonged to him.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“To hear you say ‘I do,’ and I know what you’re feeling now, about your parents. Do you ever call home?”

“The day I got my first paycheck, I called Dad at the office to tell him I was sending back the credit card he’d given me for school, that I had a good job and I was fine. He said, ‘You’re welcome. I’m proud of you.’ I could hear Mariah’s voice in the background as he hung up. He never called back, and I have no desire to let that energy back into my life. And it’s snowing in the mountains of Tennessee. Not a good time to travel, and I don’t want to wait another minute longer than I have to to be your wife.”

“Justice of the peace?”

She turned toward him, cupped his face, and kissed his lips. “Please and thank you.”

“Happy New Year to us,” he said, and returned her kiss.

* * *

They were married in the courthouse with two clerks as witnesses. When Tate’s birthday rolled around on January 6, he had a wife, but no ring on his finger. He still wouldn’t tell the world that the most precious person in his life was now his wife.

Briar wore her rings with pride. It was legal proof she belonged to someone, and he belonged to her. David Gregory noticed the rings and smiled. He knew who had given them to her, but he wouldn’t have given up a name to save his life. There still weren’t enough words to thank Tate Bandy for saving their girl.

Learning that his son, Scott, had faked his own death years ago because of a debt to a drug dealer was as hard to face as the death had been. The added shock was that Scott was also wanted in three other countries, under two different names, for smuggling guns and drugs. The fact Scott risked everything to kidnap his own daughter with the intent to drag her into a world so vile was the last straw. The last thing he and Greta were told was that their son had been extradited to a South American prison and, when that sentence was served, would be sent to France to serve time for warrants there.

Mandy was their world, and they had Tate to thank for that.

Chapter 20

The following spring brought a multitude of storms across the nation. Mother Nature had lost her mind. Briar was disgusted with the constant downpours in New Orleans, and nervous about possible flooding in the city, but the storms always moved through too fast to cause much damage. The levees held, and life moved on.

Every night as they watched national news, they saw news clips of torrential rains flooding the plains, and in the rivers running through mountain valleys. Water overran riverbanks, swallowing houses, cattle, and people into the flood. The world was washing away, and there weren’t any magic words to stop the onslaught.

Back in Star Ridge, the faithful river where kids went swimming and anglers dipped their hooks in the flow, where Abel taught Tate to fish, had turned into a raging monster.

The roads both east and west of town were washed out. The river had long since overflowed its banks and was still plowing a new tributary, bringing it closer and closer to the south side of town.

The lives of the people who’d lived outside of Star Ridge, and closer to the river, were forever changed. Houses had washed away. Livestock drowned—their bloated bodies moving with the flood like gory barges. In the county alone, twelve people had drowned, and in Star Ridge, people were missing, and grieving families, having searched in vain for days, were now praying to be delivered, one way or another.

They’d contacted outside authorities for help, but short of air-dropping food supplies, they couldn’t get to the town from either direction. They’d become an island at the bottom of a mountain. One more violent rainstorm, and the river would be in their streets, washing the rest of them away.

They were scared, weary, and at the point of giving up, when someone suggested a town meeting tomorrow, which would be a Sunday. Residents quickly agreed, hoping someone knew the magic word that would show them what to do next.

They met after church in the city park and set up the speaker station beneath the gazebo. Police Chief Pliney Watts furnished a battery-powered mic, then stood back and let the people have their say. One by one, they came up to the mic, said their piece, and handed it to someone else. The general consensus was that everyone needed some measure of help, but no one had an answer.

Then Andy Sparks from Sparks Grocery stepped up and unloaded a painful truth. “It’s a damn shame that the people of this town treated the Bandy family so badly. If Tate Bandy was still here, he would help us find the missing. He would know if there was more rain to come. If it wasn’t for him, I would likely have been shot dead the day two men tried to rob me at the bank night deposit. I know he’s done things for many people here. Warning us even when we didn’t heed the warnings. He was the best employee I ever had, but the day he quit was hard to swallow. He quit the store, and in his heart quit this town, because we all kept making his mama, Lilith, cry. I still hear that in my dreams. I look back at this town and wonder if this is God punishing us for shunning the blessing that boy was. Just look at what he has become, and what he continues to do to help people find closure.”

Silence followed Andy as he walked off the stage.