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“He decided to stay for a drink,” Doc said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Birdie’s asleep,” Gray mumbled.
Mrs. DuVere sized him up. “Black coffee?”
“No. Whiskey.”
Her eyebrows hit her hairline.
“Make it three,” Doc said. “On me.”
She got the glasses out and poured, never losing the surprised expression. Gray picked up his glass and sniffed. The fumes alone made his nose burn and eyes water. He’d never understand people’s partiality for the stuff. Then again, Frank seemed like a pretty happy guy most of the time. Fuzzy and often completely unaware of what was going on around him, which sounded perfect to Gray just then, come to think of it.
He glanced at Doc who took a small sip of his drink and Jason, who hadn’t touched his yet. “Here goes nothin’,” he said, and downed half his whiskey in one gulp.
And nearly gagged it back up. He eventually managed to swallow before exhaling with a pained wheeze. He’d expected strong, butsweet Mary and Joseph, his breath alone could probably peel paint now.
Still, as unpleasant an experience as that had been, the world took on an almost immediate fuzzy quality. Very nice. Maybe with enough, he’d go numb entirely. But sipping might be better than just downing the rest of it. He wanted to get drunk. Not strip his throat down to the bone. Doc laughed and slapped him on the back.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have to…run an errand,” Jason said, pushing his drink toward Gray and giving Doc a look that Gray didn’t try to interpret. They could look at each other all they wanted. He just wanted to drink.
Preacher passed Jason on the way out and slid onto his vacated stool. “Mind if I join you?”
Gray turned to him. “You going to yell at me, too?”
“Nope.”
“Ask me why I’m still here when I made such a stink about leaving?”
Preacher shrugged. “I saw Birdie sleeping outside. I assumed you were waiting for her to wake up.”
Gray pushed Jason’s abandoned drink Preacher’s way. “Then have a seat.”
Preacher raised the glass to him and Doc and took a sip.
Gray gulped another large mouthful of his own and then sighed. There it went. That nice, spinning, fuzzy sensation he’d been hoping would happen.
Maybe if he held very still, he could live in that booze-induced bubble forever. That would be nice. Because the rest of the world just hurt too damn bad.
Chapter Twenty-five
When Mercy heard the horse ride into the courtyard, she threw open the door, ready to give Gray another earful. Either that or tie him up and hide him in the back room until he got over this ridiculous notion of running away. But it was only Jason. The fight went out of her almost immediately, and she slumped against the doorframe.
Jason dismounted, took one look at her, and nodded. “Just as I thought,” he said, pushing his way past her into the house.
“No, please, come in,” she said, her voice flat and emotionless. Then her eyes narrowed. “Wait, what do you mean, it’s just as you thought?” she asked, shutting the door behind her.
Jason waved a hand at her. “You. This.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to elaborate.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re just as I expected I’d find you.”
“Oh really? And how is that?”
“Just like he is. Pissing mad and absolutely heartbroken.”
Mercy’s mouth dropped open. “Heartbroken? What are you talking about? Angry, I’ll give you that, but I’m not heartbroken. If he wants to leave, he can go right ahead. Even though he promised he would stay to help with Josiah and now he’s running away right when things get really bad. He is nothing but a coward or just…lazy. That’s what it is, isn’t it? He agreed to stay, but only if all he had to do was sit there and let his name do all the work. Then we forced him to be the sheriff, and now he actually has to get off his butt every day and do something good for somebody other than himself.”
