The Liar

She passed a little farmhouse where a boy about Callie’s age rolled on the scrubby grass with a yellow dog.

“See the puppy! Mama, when can I have a puppy?”

“Her newest obsession,” Shelby said under her breath. “Once we get our own house, we’ll think about that. We’re almost to our picnic spot,” she added, hoping to block the litany of follow-up questions.

She turned onto a narrow dirt road, bumped carefully along it. “This belongs to that little farm we just passed. Daddy’s delivered three babies in that house—might be more now since I’ve been gone—and made house calls for the grandmother until she passed. The family lets us use this road, and have picnics or hike back here. They set great store by my daddy.”

“So do I, since he cleared me to work.”

“Your eye’s looking some better.”

“I kissed it better, Mama, when I had my pizza date with Griff. Are we there yet?”

“We’re as far as we can drive.” She angled into the pull-off. “It’s not very far to walk. About a quarter-mile. It’s a little steep, though, and likely a little rough.”

“We’re up for it.”

He settled the logistics by hauling Callie up on his shoulders, taking the hamper. “Bag and blankets for you,” he told Shelby. “It’s so quiet here.”

He spotted a bold red cardinal watching them from a perch on a hawthorn tree.

“That’s not even the best part.”

“Nobody’s going to come out with a shotgun?”

“I asked Daddy to check if it was okay, and the family’s fine about it. We leave the land as we found it, that’s all. Though they might have discouraged revenuers that way, back in the Prohibition days. Plenty ran whiskey out of the hills and the hollers. My people among them—both sides.”

“Bootleggers.” It made him grin.

“It’d be hard to find a handful of people with native roots who didn’t have bootleggers on the family tree.”

“It was a dumbass law.”

“Dumbass,” Callie repeated, predictably.

“Sorry.”

“It’s not the first time. That’s a grown-up word, Callie.”

“I like grown-up words.” When she screamed, Griff shoved the hamper at Shelby, started to whip Callie down.

“A bunny! I saw a bunny rabbit!”

“Jesus—jeez,” Griff corrected. “You scared the . . . heck out of me, Little Red.”

“Catch the bunny rabbit, Griff! Catch it.”

“I didn’t bring my bunny rabbit catching tools.” With his heart still hammering, he took the hamper back, continued the climb.

When he topped the rise, he saw every step of the climb had been worth it.

“Okay, wow.”

“It’s just like I remembered. The stream, the trees, especially that big old black walnut. And just enough opening up so you can see some of the hills and valleys.”

“You’re in charge of all the picnic spots, from this day forward.”

“Hard to top this one, unless it’s at your place.”

When he put Callie down, she bulleted straight for the stream.

“Callie, don’t go close to the edge,” Shelby began, but Griff grabbed her hand and pulled her to the stream.

“Cool.” He crouched down beside Callie. “Look at all the little waterfalls. The shiny rocks.”

“I wanna go swimming!”

“It’s not deep enough for swimming, baby, but you can take your shoes and socks off, put your feet in. You can go wading.”

“’Kay. I can go wading, Griff!”

Callie plopped down, attacked her shoes while Shelby spread blankets beside the stream with its tumbling water, mossy logs, thickening ferns.

“Not worried about her getting the dress wet?” Griff asked.

“I’ve got a change for her in the bag. I’d like to know a little girl who wouldn’t want to splash in this stream.”

“You’re a pretty cool mom.”

While Callie stepped in to splash and squeal, Griff pulled the bottle, wrapped in its frozen cozy, out of his bag.

“Champagne?” After a surprised laugh, Shelby shook her head. “That’s going to put my fried chicken to shame.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

She drank champagne, had the satisfaction of seeing Griff devour her chicken. She let Callie run off some energy chasing butterflies or going back for another splash.

And relaxed, as she realized she hadn’t, not really, since the morning she’d faced Arlo Kattery with bars between them.

And he’d have that view, she thought, through bars, for a long, long time.

But she had this—the green and the blue, the chirp and twitter of birds, the sun streaming through the trees to play shadows on the ground as her little girl played in the stream.

“You’re definitely hired,” Griff told her when he went back for another piece of chicken, another scoop of potato salad.

“Sitting here, it seems like nothing’s wrong in the world.”

“That’s why we need places like this.”

She reached out, trailed her fingers over the healing cut on his forehead. “Forrest said they still haven’t caught that Harlow person, and it makes me think he did what he came to do, and he’s long gone from here.”

“Makes the most sense.”

“Then why’d you follow me home at two in the morning on Friday night?”

“Because that makes sense to me, too. When are you going to let me follow you home again?”

Oh, she’d just been hoping he’d ask. “I guess I could see if Mama’s okay watching Callie one night this week.”