The woman on the edge of the bed didn’t look as Morgan had pictured, but he didn’t really know what he’d expected. She had faded blond hair in a practical cut and a grim cast to her face. She might have been pretty without that… or not. When she saw Morgan, her whole face lit up and walked over to him.
“Morgan. That’s what they said your name is now,” she said carefully. “Can I… can I hug you?”
She held out her arms and looked cautiously hopeful. Something in Morgan’s chest relaxed. He’d half expected to feel a twinge of recognition when he saw her, or of guilt for his plan to lie to her about her son’s real fate.
Instead he just felt the cautious distance he always did when the social workers rolled him to a new home. The mothers were always on their best behavior, for a few weeks, anyhow, as they tried to coax the love out of him. It never worked, and eventually they got tired of him, and the hugs would dry up. Then they’d send him away and be ready with outstretched arms for the next kid.
Morgan relaxed and spread his arms for the embrace. She sighed and threw herself against his chest. He shouldn’t have worried, he thought with distant chill. He could lie to Donna. She was really just another foster mother, and they got to use each other to get what they needed. It didn’t count.
Chapter Fifteen
THE UNIONrep had told Boyd to shave. He’d done that. His cheeks were bare and shiny. She’d also said he should wear a tie. That was more of a problem.
He scowled at his reflection in the mirror, his plain white-walled and wood-floored bedroom reflected in the background as he fumbled with the black strip of silk. It was attempt five and his second shirt after he managed to rip the collar buttons off the first one. He fumbled the silk in the simple sequence of loops and tucks he’d watched on YouTube.
Over. Around. Under… or over? It probably didn’t matter, so he pressed on.
It turned out it did matter. The wide part of the tie ended up at the back, dangling down to his trousers.
Boyd hooked his fingers behind the knot and wrenched it loose again. The long strip of fabric was wrinkled and damp. It looked worse for wear. He impatiently smoothed it out between his fingers, but that didn’t help as much as he hoped.
The hell with it. Boyd balled up the tie and tossed it onto the bed. He hadn’t been reliably able to tie his own laces until he was eight. So he wasn’t going to master ties in a morning, not when he couldn’t get his brain to shut up long enough to focus on what his fingers were doing.
It had been three days since Morgan met Donna at the hospital, and also three days since he’d talked to Boyd. It turned out he didn’t need Boyd’s support after all and had lost interest in his ass while he was at it. The thoughts rattled around Boyd’s skull like dice, with snake eyes represented by the reminder that Boyd didn’t have any standing to care.
He wasn’t the brother or the mother or the local cop. The only relation he could claim was that he was a one—and a half—night stand who should have been pretty clear where he stood. Morgan hadn’t led him on, and Boyd didn’t get to be put out that he’d fallen by the wayside.
He was, but as long as he kept that to himself, it was no one’s business.
Boyd tilted his chin up, the skin of his neck pulled taut, and flicked his collar open. He was a firefighter. What did it matter if he wore a tie? A ribbon around his neck wouldn’t prove he hadn’t done anything underhanded to come up with Morgan’s bail. He just hadn’t.
He gave his shirt a tug to pull the fabric straight over his stomach and then plucked his glasses from his pocket to slide them on. The heavy black frames made him look smart, and he needed all the help he could get.
His alarm went off, the iPhone noisy as it vibrated against the glass surface of the bedside table. Boyd gave himself one last look in the mirror as he tried to decide if he looked like someone who should be allowed in a fire engine…even if it wasn’t in Cutter’s Gap.
Close enough, he guessed, although maybe he should have tried harder with the tie. He straightened his collar, grabbed his phone, and headed out. It would be fine. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
Except maybe, an oily voice that sounded a lot like Robbie Fernfield snickering in his mental ear as he went down the steps, fucking the biggest reason they wanted to get rid of him. That could count against him.
Boyd paused on the last step to consider. Maybe it would, but in that case, they could all go to hell. He had no regrets.
Except the tie. He should have asked Harry to do it for him.
Boyd paused and took a deep breath as he reached the street. The tie didn’t matter. He didn’t care what they thought about Morgan. He was a good firefighter, and that was all that should count. If he didn’t let the rattle of disconnected thoughts inside his head screw him over.
He bent down to shove a few bills into the cup of the homeless man on the corner, who was wedged into the doorway of what the faded sign in the window had promised was going to be a Starbucks two years ago. The slurred “Thanks, pal,” grunted on reflex from under the matted beard, meant Ken was still with them. Last year Boyd had to administer first aid a couple of times, twice in the summer and once in the winter.
Somehow the memory steadied Boyd, and his distraction dropped to normal levels. No matter what anyone said, or why he’d committed to this career, he wasgoodat it.
“Wish me luck,” he told Ken. “Time to talk to my boss to keep letting me run into fires.”
BOYD SATon one side of the long table in the Town Hall’s only meeting room and tried not to look sullen as the clock ticked down toward the start of a third hour. The strain of being still for so long hummed between his ears like static. Despite enough bathroom breaks to make him look as though his medical problem was his kidneys, he still felt he could jump out a window.
“I think this has gone on long enough,” the mayor said after a nudge from his secretary. He adjusted his tie, checked down the table to make sure everyone was in agreement, and cleared his throat. “We’ll take a few moments to discuss the matter before we decide how to move forward.”
The mayor was there on a technicality, although everyone in town knew Denny Samms had the job because he did what he was told and leased the rest of the council new cars from his lot. The rest of the panel were the great and the good of Cutter’s Gap—old money and prestige positions, from the owner of the local bank to a stone-faced Captain Mackenzie, who’d also had to take his turn being raked over the Calloway coals.
Tara put her hand on Boyd’s knee under the table and pressed his heel down to the ground. He hadn’t noticed he was bouncing his leg. “Before that, can we return to Mr. Maccabee’s previous request?”
