“Well, looky here. The perfect disguise.”
My heart leapt into my throat. Barton Finch.
“I wouldn’t have recognized you if you’d kept your mouth shut. That sassy tongue of yours gave you away. Bitch.”
His gaze raked over me and he licked his lips when they affixed upon my breasts. They were unbound and I was without a corset. I wasn’t going to glance down to see if my nipples were poking out. “There’s more to you than I thought.”
I cringed at his breath, his leer.
He’d had me cornered like this just the day before, but we’d been alone and at his cabin. Alone. Now, we were in the mercantile and Ann and Emma were at the front with Mrs. Maycomb.
“Don’t make me scream,” I said.
“Don’t make me kill those two fine ladies.”
I froze at those words. He grinned.
“Couldn’t help but overhear. Bridgewater, huh? That the place where two men get to fuck a woman together. Sounds like my kind of place.” He looked me over again.
He now knew where I’d been. Knew where Ann and Emma were from.
“You wouldn’t like it. People bathe,” I countered.
He grinned showing off his yellow teeth.
“What’s this about marrying two men? Did I hear you mention a Hank? Do you mean Hank Baker, the sheriff?”
I’d become accustomed to hiding my every emotion from my family. If they knew something excited me, like a stray cat, they shot it. If they knew something bothered me, they’d continue to pester me with it. They’d left the front door open, allowing flies in the house all summer long just because I’d told them it annoyed me. They were assholes. I’d known it before, but after meeting all the men at Bridgewater, it was confirmed.
And Barton Finch—
“Smart idea, Grace. Shacking up with the sheriff to save your neck. And marrying him?” He laughed. “Fuck, woman, you’ve got guts. You must be a better fuck than I thought if the sheriff can get past your name. That pussy must be incredible.”
I tipped my chin up, stayed silent, for I wasn’t going to respond to his crude words.
Guilt swept through me, fierce and strong, because I’d thought just that the day before. But then I’d stopped thinking it entirely because I wanted Hank for him. I wanted Charlie, too. I wanted them as a woman wanted a man, not a Grove wanting protection. I’d forgotten about my life for a few hours and had hoped. Had wanted. Had actually had something more.
“Did you disguise your name, too? What do you think will happen when I tell him who you really are?”
With Barton Finch standing before me, I knew it was all over.
“As if you’d get anywhere near the sheriff,” I snapped.
He didn’t respond to that. Instead, he asked, “Think your neck will snap when you’re on the gallows or will you swing and jerk for a while until you strangle and suffocate?”
Bile rose in my throat at the words. They were true. I would hang right along with them. I was Grace Grove.
“What do you want?” I whispered.
“I got a bank to rob. Word’s spread about the two Groves who got shot and are in jail.”
He didn’t know I was the one who’d shot my own family.
“I can’t do it alone. Now I’ve got you.”
I shook my head. “No. I haven’t done it yet and I won’t start now.”
He looked over his shoulder to Emma and Ann who were by the front window trying on straw hats. A slight shrug of