The Outlaw Women Read online

  “I’m taking your secret to my grave, you know.”

  Marty met her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “But you can’t spend the rest of your life with me being the only one that knows. I won’t be here forever. You have to tell someone.”

  Rocking the chair, he looked down at his hands, fingers hooked in a loose knot in his lap. “I can’t. You know that. It’d wreck my whole life.”

  Sue’s heart skipped a beat, leaving a hollow feeling in her body, as if part of her soul had tested the waters beyond the boundaries of her flesh. She wished she had hours with Marty, but she didn’t. “I’ve been thinking about the Outlaw women’s gifts. I hate to think I’m the end of the line. You think Mae might be a late bloomer?”

  “Maybe. She’d make a good healer. Well, a good mama, anyway. You know she told me she wants three young’uns and then asked if infertility ran in the family.” He chuckled. “Lord, that tickled me. I told her it couldn’t, it’s just chance, that she’s an only child like her mama.”

  “Chance in my case, yes. I started to feel like Sarah in the Bible, not getting pregnant ’til I was almost forty. But you and Rhoda-Rae—”

  “Would be fools to bring more children into a marriage like ours.” He folded his arms, stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. One foot tapped at nothing. “Anyway, Mae’s got that urge to take care of people. I see her in a softball game and someone gets hurt she’s right there, like she was their ... athletic trainer. Tell you the truth, I see her doing something like that. Not being a seer and healer like you. Still, you never know. Maybe when she’s out of the house and away from her mama, something might break through.”

  Sue felt another leak, another loss. Her heart was getting ready to quit. It didn’t hurt—yet. It might in a few minutes. “Open that press behind you.”

  Marty rose, parted the doors of the old linen press. On some of its shelves lay sheets and pillow cases, but on the top shelf, she’d set out her crystals: raw, rough rubies, emeralds, garnets, amethysts and quartz points, as unpolished as when they’d come from the ground in the local gemstone mines.

  “Dump Paul’s stuff out here.” Sue patted the bed beside her. “I’ll sort through it. Put those stones in the box and take it with you. If you take the stuff for the historical society and say this box is more of those old letters, Rhoda-Rae won’t care to look. Especially if you say they belonged to my Daddy’s sisters.” The other healers. “Save those stones somewhere safe, and give ’em to Mae when she’s grown. Sixteen or so.”

  Marty turned over a small box, dropping Paul’s neatly folded summer cotton shirts beside Sue. Their faded softness made her feel as if she could touch Paul in one of them. She could just about see him, coming in from the garden, bringing her some tomatoes. Marty placed the crystals in the box. “You want me to say what they’re for?”

  “Depends on how she grows up. But I want her to have ’em, no interference from Rhoda-Rae.”

  He tucked one of the old shirts around them. “So they won’t rattle in the truck. What got you thinking about this today?”

  Should she tell him? No. Rhoda-Rae would be all over her, first pooh-poohing premonitions, and then doing CPR. Paul was waiting. It was time to go.

  “I don’t know. Just being old, I reckon. Give me one of those quartz points. I still need one to work with.”

  Marty handed it to her and paused halfway in closing the box. “One enough?”

  She nodded. Not many beats left. “I’m feeling a little peaked. I think I’ll take a nap. Tell Mae I’m not canning after all, and ... everything y’all picked today, you can take it to the food bank at your church. I bet they don’t get a lot of fresh foods. Bring ’em some of that broccoli, too. Before the worms get back in it. And there’s plenty of squash.”

  “Want us to make some dinner while we’re here, wake you up for it?”

  “No. Just pick whatever’s ready. Take some home, and feed the hungry with the rest.”

  Marty bent over his mother-in-law and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You old heathen. Rhoda-Rae won’t know what to make of you being such a good Christian.”

  “No,” she squeezed his hand, “but Jesus would.”

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  Sue laid the quartz point on her belly. She didn’t dare put it on her heart in case she messed up whatever was coming. With one hand, she took Marty’s cap off the bedpost, and held it. She rested her other hand on Paul’s shirt.

  Lord, let me see my family one more time.

  She felt the power of the crystal move through her, and the traces of Marty’s life force that lingered in his ball cap. Her vision shifted through a kind of dark place and then showed her the garden.

  Marty wore Paul’s old blue cloth gardening hat, and Mae one of Sue’s straw hats. The basket of brown paper bags sat in the dirt a few feet away from Mae and Marty, while they made their way down the row of squash, crouching, picking, and filling bags. A third hat, another one of Sue’s, lay on top of the stack of bags, held in place by a rock.

  Rhoda-Rae walked up, put down the apple basket, and dusted her hands. “What in the world are you two up to?”

  “Grab a hat and a bag. Your mama decided to send a load of stuff to the food pantry.”

  She lifted the hat and shook it. “What’s with these old hats from Mama’s clutter room?”

  “I left my cap upstairs, and she’s taking a nap. Didn’t want to bother her. Figured we’d all get fried if we didn’t wear ’em.”

  “So she takes a nap while we do her good deeds for her.”

  Mae stood up tall. “You make it sound like she’s lazy. Granma’s seventy years old. And she’s giving away all this food she worked to grow.”

  Marty gave his daughter a warning look, and she squatted down to bag more squash. He caught his wife’s eye and nodded toward the picnic table. “I brought you some tea, honey. Take a rest.”

  Rhoda-Rae put on the hat. “I could use that drink. Thank you.” Her gratitude sounded tense and forced. “But I don’t need a rest.”

  She took her load of apples to the table and drank standing up. Mae and Marty continued their harvest. Abruptly, Mae turned. “That’s weird. For a second I could swear Granma was standing on the lawn, looking at us.”

  “Maybe she’s dreaming about you,” Marty said. “She was talking about you before I came down.”

  “How could that make me see her?”

  “I don’t know, baby. But you are wearing her hat.”

  Sue smiled and let go the vision of her family. She moved her attention to Paul’s shirt.

  Her image of him came through sharp and clear, a close look at his bright blue eyes, his big square chin, and his hair falling over his forehead in that way that made him look like a messy little boy even when he was seventy-one. His face was sweaty, as if he’d been working hard or didn’t feel well. He was in the woodshed putting the snow shovel away and collecting a load of firewood, wearing his red jacket and those old jeans with the hole in the seat. She’d warned him he’d freeze his ass off and they’d both laughed. Their last conversation. Her breath froze. She was going to see him have that heart attack. See him fall where she’d found him, one step out of the woodshed, facedown on his armful of split logs.

  But he didn’t fall. He looked at her and gave her a wink. His arms were suddenly empty, reaching out to her, as he counted with her heartbeats. “Five, four, three, two, one ...”

  Author’s Note

  This story can be enjoyed as a standalone, or as a prequel to the award-winning Mae Martin Psychic Mystery Series. In these innovative and unconventional mysteries, you’ll meet Mae as a young woman discovering her gift of the Sight and the challenges that come with using it.

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  The Mae Martin Series

  No murder, just mystery. Every life hides a secret, and love is the deepest mystery of all.

  https://amberfoxxmysteries.com/buy-books-retail-links

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  Awards: Shaman’s Blues and Snake Face received B.R.A.G. Medallions. To learn more go to

  http://www.bragmedallion.com

  About the Author

  Amber Foxx has worked professionally in theater, dance, fitness, yoga, and academia. She has lived in both the Southeast and the Southwest, and calls New Mexico home.

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  http://amberfoxxmysteries.com

  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7554709.Amber_Foxx

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Amber-Foxx/354071328062619

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  Contact:

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  Did you love The Outlaw Women? Then you should read The Calling by Amber Foxx!

  The first Mae Martin Psychic Mystery

  Obeying her mother’s warning, Mae Martin-Ridley has spent years hiding her gift of “the sight.” When concern for a missing hunter compels her to use it again, her peaceful life in a small Southern town begins to fall apart. New friends push her to explore her unusual talents, but as she does, she discovers the shadow side of her visions— access to secrets she could regret uncovering.

  Gift or curse? When an extraordinary ability intrudes on an ordinary life, nothing can stay the same.

  The Mae Martin Series

  No murder, just mystery. Every life hides a secret, and love is the deepest mystery of all.

  Read more at Amber Foxx’s site.

  Also by Amber Foxx

  Mae Martin Mysteries

  The Calling

  Shaman's Blues

  Snake Face

  Soul Loss

  Ghost Sickness

  Death Omen

  Standalone

  The Outlaw Women

  Bearing

  Watch for more at Amber Foxx’s site.