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TOMMY

“That’s the lot, Miss Bitsy.” I carry the aging woman’s groceries inside her house and plop the bags on her dining room table.

Gallons of milk already with chilled condensation on the side because of the heat of the midday sun.

Tubs of yogurt toppled over, and bags of salad that, if it were for anyone else, wouldn’t make me lift a brow.

But this woman… the one who would rather churn her own butter and raise chickens so she can have the freshest eggs in a fifty-mile radius…

a bagged salad may as well be tornado sirens screaming across town.

She’s unwell, but she’d rather die in silence than admit weakness.

Stubborn old mule.

“I’m gonna head out back and clean up that felled tree, too.

Last week’s storm made a mess, and Chris just got the chainsaw serviced.

I’ve been busting to take it for a spin, so…

” I smile playfully, only to earn a look of exasperation from the woman who has been shooting them my way since I was old enough to notice folks didn’t much like me.

“If you hear someone scream, don’t panic.

I’m still learning how to use sharp things without supervision. ”

Frail, though she wouldn’t like to know I know it, she sits at her dining table and looks me up and down. She has a way of staring that arrows straight for my gut. Eyes that see all, and a lifetime of knowing me and my brother almost better than we know ourselves.

“You’re fussing, Thomas Watkins.” She dips a hand into her grocery bags and pulls out a bag of tomatoes—another red flag, considering Beatrice ‘Bitsy’ Page has grown her own for as long as I can remember.

“I don’t need you to hassle me any more than I need your brother to pump my gas or check my tire pressure. It pisses me off.”

Scoffing, I turn on my heels and grab the door. “It’s a tree, and I’m not letting you use the chainsaw. If anyone gets to cut their hand off today, it’s me. I’ve been nagging Chris for a week now to let me have a go.”

“You get that call yet?” In my peripheral, she sets her tomatoes down and goes back to drag sticks of celery from the bag. “From Vegas.”

“Yeah, I got the call. The fight is on.” It’s gotta be at least a hundred degrees outside today, which means sweat drips from my brow despite how cool it is inside Bitsy’s house.

I peel the hem of my tank up and wipe my face.

“The date’s been set, and Chris is already on me about scheduling.

Christmas Eve.” I drop my shirt and meet her beautiful eyes.

They’re almost exact replicas of a different pair I used to know.

A pair I spent my entire youth looking into.

But that was a long, long time ago. “Henry set it up so we get the Christmas Eve crowd and ratings. You could come, ya know? Watch me live instead of on the television.”

“See you get your face rearranged in real life?” She sets the celery down.

“No thanks. I’d rather watch it on my screen and avoid all the noise and blood.

” She reaches into the bag for strawberries.

“You could have gotten a job down at the metal factory. A nice, normal, weekly wage kind of job instead of…” But she has no words for what it is I do.

So she gestures my way, waving her hand listlessly up and down.

“There are better ways to make money. People die fighting.”

“First of all, Carlton Tanner worked down at the factory for the last thirty years. He died last year because of a machine malfunction that should never have happened. Now his wife is lonely, and his kids are barely scraping by because life insurance wasn’t something he thought to organize, and the factory won’t take responsibility for the death they caused.

Second, I don’t remember the last time someone died in the octagon. It’s a sport, Bitsy. Not Sparta.”

“It’s punching someone in the face for a paycheck.”

“Yep.” I click my tongue and pull her door open. She won’t change my mind any more than I’ll change hers. “And that paycheck means my kids’ll never be broke.”

“What kids?! You have none, and no one is walking around town with a swollen belly because of you. Which,” she adds with a downturn of her lips, mumbling almost as though talking to herself.

“Is not how I expected things to be. I was sure you’d have them all over.

You and your brother always stressed the hell out of me. ”

“You think you know me.” I grab my hat from my back pocket and unfold the abused bill so it’s not too curled.

But I’m still inside, and around here, you don’t wear a hat until you’re out the door.

“I should take offense to the assumptions you made about me in my youth, Miss Bitsy. Judging me because of where I came from isn’t very nice. ”

“My judgment had hardly anything to do with your folks, and everything to do with how wild you were all across town. Worse, you hauled my daughter along for the ride, slapping her with a guilty-by-association reputation, no matter how hard I tried to keep her away. She wanted nothing to do with you, until she did, then those teenage hormones hit, and suddenly, the local cops had her prints on file.”

“Because of me.” I fake a laugh and ignore the spasm in my stomach, put there by a mere mention of the woman who took my heart and tossed it under a fuckin’ train.

Alana Page was the town’s good girl—or at least, that’s what her innocent face would have people believe.

And I… well, I was the town’s good-for-nothin’ son-of-a-nobody, and one half of a trouble-making duo with a future so bleak, the girl who claimed to love me still went cold after prom and left town the second she had her high school diploma in hand.

Forever, my ass.

“Your daughter knew her way around trouble, Miss Bitsy. But back then, her reputation was still reasonably shiny, and mine could shoulder more smudge. There was no need to blast her for her crimes when I could serve the sentence in her place.”

Her eyes glitter with a deviousness I would recognize anywhere. Anytime. Any world where the Page family exists. Fuck, I fell in love with that tormenting stare when I was just nine years old and a girl who hated me admitted she was kinda curious, too.

“You always kept her strapped to your hip, didn’t you?

” Bitsy firms thin lips. “You say you’d take the blame for anything she did, but from where I stood, I reckon you’d have burned this town down and handed her the matches.

If you were going to prison, you wanted to make sure she was coming, too.

It’s kind of wholesome, I suppose, in a totally nonsensical way. ”

“We were kids. Nonsense was the game we played. Anyway—” I cross the threshold and drag my hat on, knowing my day is already committed to clearing out a forty-foot spruce and, later, a shower of ice to take away the itch that’ll crawl under my skin.

“I’m heading out back to take care of that tree.

I’ll try to keep the noise to a minimum. ”

“I appreciate you helping.” She sets her hand on the table, the other on the back of her chair, and with a grunt of exertion that makes me frown, she pushes to her feet and walks her produce to the sink.

“And even though you didn’t ask, since you know it’s rude to do so, you can stop worrying so much.

I have a carer coming to stay at the house. ”

“Really?” A breath of relief rushes through my system, emptying my lungs and replacing my frown with a giddy smile. “That’s such good news, Miss Bitsy. I know you don’t like the idea of having a stranger around, but it’ll be so much better for you to?—”

“Yeah, yeah.” She flips the faucet on to wash her vegetables. “I want you to stay away for the next few days while we get settled. I’d hate for her to be scared off by those hooligan Watkins boys turning up at stupid o’clock like you do.”

“It’s not stupid o’clock. Chris and I run at sun-up. It’s how we start our day.”

“It’s how I start my day, too,” she grumbles. “I don’t like it. I want no visitors until I say differently, so don’t even try it. Run the other way. Because if you scare her and she quits, I’m gonna rain hell down on your heads.”

“I’ll leave you be.” I straighten my hat and back up onto the wraparound porch that could do with new boards. New nails. New lacquer.

Hell, it could do with a whole new porch.

“This carer will be here to help you inside? Like cooking and cleaning and stuff?”

“Mm. Something like that.”

“So I’ll keep up with the outside. But,” I add when she glares over her shoulder. “Not for a few days till you settle in. When does she arrive?”

“This afternoon.” She washes each tomato with shaking fingers, rubbing the skin until it shines bright red. “Dinnertime.”

“I’ll get started with that tree and make sure I clear out before your new friend arrives.

” Releasing the door and allowing it to swing shut, I turn on my heels and jog down the porch steps.

“I’ll come back on the weekend to mow. I can’t leave it any longer than that,” I call back, knowing she’s apt to argue.

“It’ll get too long, and then you’ll have to deal with critters.

Chris.” I lift my chin and wait for my twin brother to swing my way.

He leans against the front of my truck, one foot on the ground and the other on the grille, while a hat not all that different from mine shades his eyes, and his lips, too often folded into a scowl, move into flat lines.

“We’re on the clock. She’s got guests coming over tonight.

” I stride straight past him and reach into the bed of my truck to free the chainsaw.

Then turning again, I start toward the tree at the rear of Bitsy’s property, about thirty yards from her back door. “You ready to sweat?”