Lori Armstrong - Mercy Kill

“Well, it ain’t looking good for the home team, A-Rod.”

“No matter. You’ll bounce back, Gunny. You always do.” Anna tossed her beer bottle in the trash. “Is there any food?”

“Peanut butter and fruit.”

“You still eat like your choices are MREs,” she complained. “I’m hungry for real food. Like pizza.”

“No pizza joints around here. You can get pizzas at the bar or buy frozen ones at the grocery store.”

“Think I’ll head into town and pick one up. You need anything else while I’m there?”

“Nope.”

She spun her keys around her index finger. “Be back in a bit.”

I lined up the next ten cases and squirted lube on the pad. “No rush. I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied.”

“One of these days, Gunny, you’re going to stop trying so damn hard to do it all.”

I smiled at her. “Don’t bet the farm on that.”

The table-and-chair configuration at the community center resembled a wedding dance, not a hall for a political debate. Red, white, and blue streamers floated overhead in an elaborate twist that originated at the stage.

The stage.

My belly jumped as I lingered by the main door. Did I really have the guts to stand up in front of all these people and make a spectacle of myself? Especially after I’d spent the last two decades striving to stay inconspicuous?

The Parker Brothers Band were tuning guitars, checking mics, repositioning amps and speakers for when they took the stage after the debate. If I listened closely, I could hear the impatient tapping of cowboy boots and the palpable anticipation of the crowd.

I didn’t delude myself that attendees were here to listen to Dawson and me argue the issues. The people running my campaign refused to accept that swaying voters was moot at this point. I bet 99.9 percent of voters had made up their minds before I’d filled Bill O’Neil’s slot on the ballot. This debate was an excuse to party, as it was the first large-scale community event after the long winter, calving season, and branding.

Andrew Parker spotted me. He grinned, and all six feet five inches, three hundred pounds barreled toward me.

I braced myself for Andrew’s standard greeting. He’d bind me in his massive arms, swing me in a circle, whooping and hollering as if we were still eight-year-old kids on the school playground.

“Lord have mercy, I feel my temperature rising,” he sang as he grabbed me and-yep-spun me around. Twice.

I closed my eyes and let him.

Once Andrew set me on my feet, he pushed his straw hat back on his bald head. “You’ll save me a dance? For old time’s sake? Please?” He waggled his eyebrows. “A slow one?”

“No way. Marcie will kick my ass.” I peered around him and looked for his petite wife. Marcie, a world-class barrel racer with the awards and belt buckles to prove it, was still the tough cowgirl who loved a good catfight. “Where is she?”

“Home. Her ankles puffed up like marshmallows. She didn’t feel like kickin’ up her heels with the baby kickin’ her bladder every five minutes.”

Hard to fathom my classmates were still having babies. Even harder to believe? Some of them were already grandparents. “When is she due?”

“Next month.”

As I debated on whether to ask more nosy questions, Andrew’s curious gaze burned into me. “What?”

“Just wondering if my favorite candidate is still singing?”

“Only in the shower and in the truck.”

He bumped me with his shoulder. “Come on, ’fess up, Mercy. You were too damn good to’ve given it up completely.”

“I did. Not a lot of singing gigs in the army.”

“Bet you still know all the words to every Patsy Cline song.”

“So?”

“So… get up on stage with us tonight and sing a couple.”

“No.”

“Not even for old time’s sake?”

“No.”

“Just one?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Bet it would get you more votes,” he said slyly.

“What part of no is confusing you, Andrew? You get hit on the head with a concrete boom or something?” Andrew had followed in his father’s footsteps and taken over the family business.

Which made me wonder… Had I been predestined to run for sheriff? Following parental footsteps like so many of my friends?

“Your dad would’ve loved to hear you sing. He was so proud of you in everything you did. Singing. Soldiering. Now running for sheriff. It’d be a great way to remember him.”

I hissed, “You suck, playing the dead-father card.”

His brown eyes softened. “I didn’t mean it that way. Wyatt was a great man, Mercy. We all miss him.”

That soothed my flash of temper. “Thanks.”

He paused for all of fifteen seconds before he started badgering me again. “So? What do you say?”

I looked around. No one was nearby. I belted out the first stanza of “There’s Your Trouble” by the Dixie Chicks and felt smug when his jaw dropped.

“Don’t sing no more, my ass,” he groused. “You oughta be ashamed, lyin’ to a gullible country boy like me.”

“That’s what you get for making me feel guilty.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

Still grumbling, Andrew disappeared onto the stage behind the slide steel guitar.

People streamed in and filled up the seating area.

Dawson had his crowd. Jazinski. Robo-Barbie. My dad’s best buddy, Dean Whittaker. A couple of the guards from the jail. Business owners like Pete. Mitzi. Larry Manx, who owned the Q-Mart. Chet, from the propane company. All locals I’d have to deal with regardless if I won or lost the election. Would that be awkward? How had my dad handled knowing the names and faces of the individuals who’d opposed him?

A crush of people surrounded me. I smiled. I chatted. I anxiously shifted from foot to foot, glad I’d worn my dressiest pair of Old Gringo heeled boots instead of Geneva’s suggestion of “strappy” high heels.

Geneva dragged me aside. “Okay. This is set to start in two minutes. Need anything?”

A full flask . “Nope.”

“Good. You’ve got a lot of supporters here, Mercy.”

I looked at the crowd. No division of factions, like the separate bride’s side and groom’s side at a wedding. Good thing-it’d be mortifying if half the seats on my side were empty. Hope, Joy, Jake, and Sophie were in the audience supporting me, which actually made me more nervous.

I readjusted the belt on my newly purchased gray wool dress slacks-I loved online shopping-and snapped out the fancy French cuffs on my new white blouse. I finger-combed my hair for the tenth time, hating I’d been coerced into letting it hang loose around my shoulders instead of slicking it back into a ponytail. I didn’t feel like me. I didn’t look like me-duded up in tailored clothes, coiffed hair, and no gun.

“You ready? You’re on first.”

“Let’s do it.” I walked up to the speaker’s platform. I inhaled an uji breath and released it. “Welcome, everyone. My name is Mercy Gunderson, and I’m running for Eagle River County sheriff.”

Everything blurred after that. What I said. What Dawson said. Thank God it only lasted around thirty minutes.

Dawson and I shook hands and exited the stage to our separate camps. Geneva assured me I’d done great. Even Kit gave me a thumbs-up. I resisted the urge to flip him off.

Distortion from the speaker system made me cringe as Andrew Parker took the microphone. “Now rumor has it… that these two candidates have a secret…”

My heart raced. Don’t do it. Don’t even say it, Andrew.

“… bet going about what the loser has to do for their opponent after the election.” Andrew zeroed in on Dawson first. “Sheriff? Care to elaborate on that side bet? Something about kissing a… pig?”