Free Gun Church by Reed Farrel Coleman Page B

menu?”
    “Me,” she said without a hint of guile. “I thought we could work up an appetite.”
    Smart girl.

    The fucking was spectacular, if not quite as ferocious as it had been the last few nights. As soon as we hit the sheets, I realized I had been too quick to dismiss the meaning of the grocery bags. Even as we were otherwise engaged, I detected subtle, barely perceptible signs that tenderness was already seeping into the relationship. There was warmth in her sighs, less urgency in my thrusting, gentle caresses. And when the St. Pauli Girl nuzzled her cheek against my chest and fairly pulled my arm over her back for a post-coital cuddle, I was sure of it. I managed not to run screaming. It was actually kind of nice. Maybe it was too early and there was still too much ground to cover for me to get bored.
    She made us grilled chorizo, avocado, queso fresco omelets with chipotle salsa and garnished with chopped cilantro. This wasn’t your typical Brixton fare, not by a long shot. Brixton was your basic ham, eggs, grits, scrapple, bacon, American cheese, and ketchup kind of place. Around here, if you didn’t need to chase it down with Lipitor and baby aspirin, it wasn’t food. And when she pulled the bottle of fine French Chardonnay from my fridge, I knew the St. Pauli Girl meant business. She might’ve been able to scrape together the omelet ingredients from stores in surrounding towns, but she definitely had to go to Stateline to get the wine. During dinner, I had actually reached my hand across the table and placed it atop hers.
    “I heard you had some trouble at the diner today,” she said, while doing the dishes.
    “You talk to Jim?”
    “Come on, Ken, the whole town knew five minutes after you left Stan’s place. Are you okay?”
    “You would know.”
    She walked away from the sink, threaded herself into my arms and sat in my lap. “Much better than okay,” she whispered, her lips touching my ear. Then she kissed me gently. When our lips separated, she just sort of stared at me.
    “Stan Petrovic isn’t the kind of man you should be messing with.”
    “
He
messed with me.”
    “I heard, but you punched him.”
    An involuntary smile appeared on my face. “I guess I did.”
    Renee frowned. “If Jim wasn’t there, would you have … you know, would you have done that?”
    I jerked my head back. “What are you getting at?”
    Her body stiffened. “Nothing.” She stood up and went back to the sink to finish the dishes. “I’m not getting at anything. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
    I walked up behind her and put my arms around her. “Too late for that.”
    “I guess.”
    I told her about the call from Meg Donovan and the Travers Legacy deal. That seemed to excite her.
    “They offered you
how
much?”
    “You heard me. It’s a lot more than I make teaching here.”
    “And what did you say?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Why didn’t you just take it?”
    “I’m not sure I can explain it in a way that will make much sense to you.”
    Renee actually slammed the dishes in the sink and pulled out of my grasp. “I’m young, not stupid.”
    “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. The thing is I’m not sure I can explain it to myself in a way that makes any real sense.”
    “Try.”
    “It’s not that I don’t want the money. I do. It’s that all the other people included in this deal, they’re still writing. Go into any book store, go on Amazon and you’ll find their books. Mine are so long out of print you can’t even find them on the discount racks. My agent got me included in the deal because Frank Vuchovich got himself killed.”
    She turned to me, brushed the back of her hand across my cheek. “But it’s still your work, Ken. What does it matter why someone buys it or reads it as long as they read it?”
    I winked. “Spoken like an agent. You could have a bright future in the business.”
    “Brixtonians don’t have futures.”
    Christ, what do you say to that?
    She saw the