Page 27 of Refuge for Flora

“Seen him what?”

Flora glanced around. No one seemed to be looking, but she couldn’t say it in the restaurant. “I can’t…”

“It’s okay. We can talk after lunch. Let’s just eat and try to have a decent time, and you can tell me all that later. But listen to me.” Barrett reached across the table with an upturned palm, and Flora understood. When she placed her hand in his, his fingers closed around it and she felt safe. “I won’t let anybody hurt you. You have my word on that. If you need a place to hide, I’ll take care of it. If somebody threatens you, I’ll make sure they’re stopped. Honestly, I don’t think anybody would have the balls to cross Mrs.Murphy. She may be a little old lady, but I wouldn’t want her mad at me.”

That made Flora snicker. “Yeah. She’s quite the old broad.”

“Yeah. If she threatened me, I swear, I’d take her seriously! I have a feeling she could be dangerous if anybody riled her up.”

“I get that feeling too.”

“Okay, so here comes our appetizer. Let’s just eat that and chat and we can talk about all the scary stuff later.” Flora nodded. It would be nice to tell someone, but right that minute, she’d had all the excitement she could handle.

Putting Velma in the back of her mind was hard. Every time she thought about it, tucking it into a corner somewhere was more difficult than the time before. Barrett tried to make conversation, but she was so distracted that she had trouble following. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I asked about your family. Parents? Brothers and sisters?”

“Oh. Yeah. Parents. They’re divorced. Mom still lives in Pikeville with her husband, John. I’ve got an older sister, Paula, and a younger brother, Ronnie. Dad lives in WestVirginia. I don’t see any of them anymore. When I married Darryl, they just wrote me off.”

“Darryl. That’s your husband.”

“I want him to be my ex-husband. I keep hoping somebody will kill him and save me the time, trouble, and danger of filing divorce papers against him.”

“Sounds like that would be doing mankind in general a favor.”

“Yeah. He’s worthless. Less than worthless.” She stopped for a few seconds, then asked, “Have you been married?”

“Yeah. Divorced.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Yeah. Let’s just say we had a serious difference of opinion on a very volatile subject, and we couldn’t get past that.”

“Is she pretty?”

To her horror, Barrett pulled out his wallet and opened it. From somewhere inside it, he pulled a picture, a small wedding picture. Sure enough, the guy was him, and the woman was beautiful. “She was.”

“You say that like she’s dead.”

“No. Not dead. Just gone.”

“Oh. So she doesn’t live around here?”

“Oh, yeah, she lives around here. I just don’t ever see her anymore.”

“That’s quite a trick in a place this small.”

“Not really. Want more tea?”

“I think so.” She waited as he summoned the server and asked for a refill on their glasses.

“So what’s your plan? Work for Mrs.Murphy until you have enough money to file for divorce? Or wait until he’s in prison and file then.”

“I’d wait until he went to prison. That way, he couldn’t hurt me.”

“He’s not going to hurt you anyway. I’ll see to that.”

“You just don’t know him.”