Strays

Chapter 18

Shortly after Dean left, Lindley passed Jed and Stacy at the coffee shop.

"Hey, guys," she greeted them brusquely, entering the shop with glancing at them. The couple exchanged confused looked, watching Lindley go straight for the cash register.

"Hot coffee—like cook you from the inside hot," she asked quickly, before adding: "Please." She rubbed her hands together furiously, thawing out slowly in the coffee shop, but she was shivering convulsively. Once the barista placed the coffee in front of her, she handed him a few dollars with hands that were dumb with cold. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, keep the change."

Lindley didn't attempt to sip the coffee, but wrapped her hands around the cup and completely as she could. She walked outside and sat in the chair that had so recently been occupied by her best friend.

"Sorry I didn't properly say hi," she apologized quickly. "I'm freezing, and I needed this coffee."

Stacy cocked her head to the side in concern. It was a chilly day, but much warmer than the day before—the sun had even begun to thaw the ice on the roads, leaving large puddles throughout town.

"Are you sick?" Jed asked her, glancing over at Stacy, who was watching Lindley with a concerned expression marring her brow.

"No," she answered with a brisk laugh. "Our heater is just broken and I kicked my blankets off me in my sleep." She brought the coffee cup to her cheek and chills coursed through her body from the sheer pleasure. Stacy reached out her hand and pressed the back to Lindley's neck.

"Oh, sweetie, you're burning up," she simpered. Lindley bent her neck to pull it away from Stacy's freezing hands. "You should go get some rest. Why don't you go over to Dean's until your heat comes back on?"

Lindley's hands were jerking from the cold, and she flipped them to press the heat of her coffee to the back of her fingers.

"He was just here," Jed told her, gesturing with his chin in the direction Dean had gone. "He either went home or to look for you, I think."

Lindley was frustrated by her inability to control the trembling of her body.

"I think I'm just going to go to Old Rick's," Lindley told them, not wanting to risk Dean not being home. Plus, she had just slept over there recently, and she didn't want to give Dean the wrong idea. She stood quickly. "Sorry that I'm darting off so quickly," she told them.

"Oh, no, honey!" Stacy insisted. "You go—get warm. You're making me cold." She laughed gently. Lindley gave them one last smile before swiftly making her way to Old Rick's.

As she opened the door with her shoulder, she realized a bar built out of a giant metal structure was the farthest from warmth as a building could get.

"Hey," Wyatt glanced, greeting her as she entered. "How was the movie?"

"N-not b-b-bad," Lindley answered, coming close to the bar, her coffee pressing to as much skin as physically possible, her hands wrapped around the cup with her chin over the lid.

"Oh, jeez," he jerked back when he saw her. "You look terrible."

"I th-think I mi-might be sick," she admitted, leaning down so that the steam from the sipping hole in her coffee vented straight into her face.

"You didn't go to that bonfire after the movie, did you?" Wyatt asked concerned, reaching over to press her face like Stacy had, but Lindley yanked her face back.

"No," she answered, begrudgingly. "I went back home, but we didn't pay our gas bill." Wyatt drops his head with an angry shake.

"Go on back to the house," Wyatt told her. "ME is home, so she can make you up a bed and some soup."

"What if I get her sick?" Lindley asked, watching Wyatt. "And then she gets the kids sick, and this just passes through your entire family?" She regretted the questions when she saw the fury in Wyatt's expression. He looked toward the wall to his left, the muscle in his jaw showing through his short beard.

"Why don't you see if Wren's in the trailer?"

Old Rick came from the back into the bar area, standing beside his son.

Lindley's instinct was to stand her ground and make it difficult for someone else to help her, but she hadn't seen Wyatt this furious in a long time. She nodded and slunk out of the silo wordlessly. Most of the heat in her coffee had been leached by her body.

When the door closed, Wyatt grabbed a damp towel and threw it hard at a wall. His breathing was coming heavy and fast and every muscle in his body tensed.

"You're alright, son," Rick told him, unflinching despite his son's outburst.

"That girl needs us and we're just sitting back letting them get away with it!" He storms over to pick up the towel he had thrown.

"Lindley needs to rescue herself," Old Rick answered, adamantly.

"Why?" Wyatt shouted raising his arms to his sides. "Because she says so? She needs to learn to lean on people. She needs to learn that her damn family is right here, and we protect each other." Wyatt turned to pace away. "But how can she when we're not protecting her?! We're letting that little girl down."

"If you think we should be doing somethin' differen' then do it," Rick answered him. Rick realized the older his grandkids got, the more Lindley's situation bothered his son. Wyatt set his elbows down on the bar and resolved that he was done letting Lindley stay within her boundaries.