and services. People would hold back for themselves, instead of pooling their resources so everyone was taken care of.
“I don’t see any harm in discussing options,” he finally said.
“Good. Maybe tomorrow afternoon you can meet with me and a few of my friends. At your house?”
Ted’s first instinct was to keep this far away from Meredith. “No, no sense in everyone walking that far, I’ll come down. Beside the bank, after lunch. Maybe around two?”
Lawrence nodded, said, “See you there,” and with a quick wave of his hand walked away.
An army . . . of sorts. Ted couldn’t stop the thrill that ran through him at the thought. And they wanted him to be in charge. They would take over this valley, and do things right.
Chapter Thirteen
Sela was still mentally worrying at the puzzle of Lawrence Dietrich and where she’d either met him or heard his name when she left the store. Mike waved and headed off, and she turned to lock the door—not that there was anything to steal inside, but she still didn’t want the building vandalized by kids, strangers passing through, or . . . or anyone. People were people, they did crappy things, and the times were stressful.
She hadn’t gone ten steps before a hefty woman with blond hair and three-inch-long dark roots charged up to her and snapped, “So you’ve been sitting on this gasoline for two months when people could have used it?”
What?
She didn’t know the woman; she took a step back because the blonde looked ready to swing and she didn’t want to get into a brawl, especially since she was pretty sure this woman could kick her butt. “I thought it would be more useful now, when the weather is getting cold,” she said as evenly as possible, trying to hide how alarmed she was. And, yes, getting angry, too.
“Who gave you the right to decide what people need?”
Sela felt her fingertips begin to throb, and the skin of her face felt tight. Slowly she took the pen out of her pocket, opened up her notebook. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“Carlette Broward,” the woman answered, suspicion mixing with the aggression in her expression as she looked at the notebook. “Why?”
Sela made a show of flipping back through the notebook, though she already knew for certain she’d never seen the name before. Nope, no mention of Carlette Broward, or indeed any Broward, anywhere in the book. She went back to the original page and wrote Carlette’s name down. “Just checking.”
“Checking on what? And what does that have to do with you hogging the gas?”
Other people were looking their way, edging closer. Sela would have been humiliated, if she hadn’t been fed up. Fed. Up. And she was. To the gills. “I was looking to see if you were on any of the lists of volunteers.”
Her jibe hit its target and the woman flushed. “I got two little kids,” she said resentfully. “I can’t just walk away and leave them alone, to do good deeds.”
“You could bring them with you. Or send word of something you could do.”
“I got all I can handle, you snide bitch, and what does that have to do with the gasoline? Answer me that!”
A hot surge of anger left her almost breathless. She was so seldom angry that she didn’t know what to do but her brain kind of disconnected and her body reacted. Sela took a step forward, erasing the distance she’d put between them, and lowered her chin to stare at the woman. “You mean my gasoline, the gasoline I paid for, and you haven’t? That gasoline? The gasoline I could have sold when we got the warning about the solar storm, but didn’t because I thought the people in this valley would need it to help survive the winter?”
Someone in the crowd muttered, “You go, girl.”
Sela didn’t think she had a choice about going on, because she’d never felt this angry, this outraged. Surrendering to the moment she stepped even closer, so close she could smell the sourness of the woman’s skin, the stench of dirty clothes. Every muscle in her body was trembling, but it wasn’t from fear, or stress, it was from the effort of holding herself in check. She wanted to shriek at the woman. She wanted to punch her in the face, she, who had never struck another person in her life. “Are you planning on being in line tomorrow morning to get my gas, after insulting me today?”