A Riverstill Angel

Fair warning, this is going to be a rather long story. It actually came to me in a dream, almost in clear, perfect novel length clarity. It will heat up rather quickly, and I hope my readers will fall for Lindi Quinn as passionatly as I did.

I hope you will also be patient with me. There's a lot of plot and descriptions and story line laid down in this first chapter. I think I am going to want to play with Lindi and Aidan for a good long time. And I know damn well I want to delve deeply and detailed into the ways that Aidan teaches Lindi Quinn to play big city games.

I don't want to just staccatto rap this story out. I think there are good things waiting to be found in these two young lovers. And I want to tell their story right.

Lindi Quinn refused to pay attention to the noise when it first started up beyond mild annoyance that it was distracting her from her reading.

"Damn." She mumbled in mesmerized lust. "That Vamp king is so fucking hot!"

After all, she knew who and what was causing the fracas.

She didn't have a problem with the tourists the way that some of the older townies did. She was young enough to be tolerant and smart enough to know that almost every business in town from the three local mom and pop diners to her dad's own veterinary clinic made most of their money during the summers and holiday weekends when the big city vacationers descended like the proverbial locusts.

Riverstill was the perfect tourist destination. It had something for every one. And for every season.

It was crossed and recrossed with rivers teeming with fish. Rivers pretty enough to be put on a postcard. Including the largest one which the town had been named after some two hundred odd years ago.

The Riverstill was a river that ran so smooth and still and silky that not even a totally plastered idiot could have managed to drown in it.

So they got the nature lovers all four seasons. The variety of spring flowers, ferns and fauna could and had made a staid scientist sob in ectasy. And Riverstill was listed in any number of tourist books as one of the best places to view autumn foliage.

They had two lakes; both large enough for water sports as well as fishing. And a fair to middling mountain that afforded enough challange to attract scores of weekend athletes and their young families.

Some fifty or sixty years ago the leading families of Riverstill had decided that if half the damn world intended to stubbornly insist on tramping through their home town they had no choice but to make the best of it.

And maybe a small fortune or two along the way.

So Riverstill also had two rather good golf courses and at least half a dozen small but pleasure providing amusement parks. As well as one large one that boasted three roller coasters and that crazy bungee cord ride that all the young idiots liked so much. Least until they were actually strapped in and stuck for the duration.

So Linda had been dealing with the tourists for as long as she could remember.

A fair number of them she'd rather liked. She still had many an old summer girlfriend that she kept in tough with via letters or as was now more common, over the internet. She'd even casually dated a few big city boys.

So no, Lindi Quinn really didn't have any pathological aversion to these teeming outsiders.

She simply held the small town opinion, usually kept politely to herself, that a large portion of them had the unfortunate tendency to behave like braying, jackass jackals.

So she simply shook her head, and tried to ignore the noise and keep on with her reading.

"Oh that's so mean! Somebody should stop that."

The speaker was Cassy Lynn, a pretty brunette who'd never had the backbone to stand up and stop anything in her entire life.

Lindi sighed, ah shit, and started to set down her book.

Cassy suddenly yipped. "His nose is bleeding!" She gasped. "Do you think we should go get Jack's mom?"

"Oh fuck me sideways!" Lindi snarled, flinging her book and lunging to her feet to go flying almost through the blackberry bush she'd been hidden behind.

She knocked Anna Jackson, the other girl standing with Cassy, ass over tea kettle then she was racing down the hill, swearing to herself for at least the millionth time that one day she was gonna kill that apathetic cursed bitch of a drunken slut for not watching over Jack better.

She bull dozed through the circle-the circle jerk as these over bred cock sucking pricks called it-deliberatly and furiously sending as many of them flying as she could.

That was fine, they wanted to play this stupid, male hormonally charged games amongst themselves, but they were playing it using Jack and that was a wrong so horribly monumental that she was choking on tears.

"Hi Linni Lin."

Jack tried to smile at her, seeing that she was upset and worrying that she was mad at him, that he'd maybe done something bad.

He winced when it made his swollen, split lip sting, and snuffled up a snotful of blood that way trying to ooze out of both his nostrils.

Lindi made a sound, a low pitched, choked, snarling whine. Then she pivoted with a dancer's ease and punched the young man she hadn't been fast enough to stop from mockingly bitch slapping Jack.

She hit him as hard as she could, putting every inch and every ounce of the pain and the rage and the sadness not ever really being able to help Jack smoldered in her.

She felt a momentary, savage joy when the young punk's nose erupted a geyser of blood.

She had never been able to do what she felt was enough to help Jack. No one in town really could.

Jack's mom didn't abuse Jack. She was just guilty of not really taking care of him as good as she should have, could have.

She fed him and clothed him and she had kept him going to school until he got to old to go anymore. She probably even loved him as much as she was capable of.

But she had her booze and her men and she let Jack just wander town way more then he should have been doing.

Technically, Jack wasn't so severely retarded that he couldn't be allowed out on his own. But the reality ended up way too often in hateful shit like this.

But the people in town like Lindi and her dad and brothers, the people who really cared about Jack couldn't figure out what the hell else they could do.

Jack's mom wouldn't give up her son. And if the issue was forced Jack would just end up in an institution and that would kill him. Everyone knew that.

And so she did the only thing she could do that made her feel better. Even though she suffered a acid wash cramp of guilt in her gut knowing that it wouldn't have made Jack feel any better.

Jack hated when people yelled or hurt each other. And seeing his Linni Lin doing what she'd just done...

"Shit!" She shrieked, wincing when she saw jack cringe anew.

Oh yeah, she was just handling this so well, but she was still lost in the waves of rage and spun around in a circle, spearing every face with green gold eyes crackling with fury. She managed to keep her voice to a low hiss that wouldn't make Jack cover his ears, but...

"You fucking sick sadist son's of a bastard. This is fun to you?"

"Linni Lin, we were just playing a game. They're my friends."

Jack put his hand on her shoulder and tried to smile. The blood that wanted to come out of his nose had finally won and the front of his T-shirt was filthy with gore.

That hurt bad enough, seeing that physical proof of how they had hurt poor, gentle Jack. But fuck, those eyes almost sent her to her knees.

Jack had the mind of a six year old. He wanted so badly to believe that these young men who had bruised and bloodied him were just playing some good old natured rough and tumble boys game.

But he had just enough intelligence to be having a hard time swallowing his own lie.

And a part of him was trying to batter through and taunt him with the truth. To crow that to these young men of power and wealth and unlimited possibilities he was nothing but a pathetic, hulking retard in a too small Power Rangers T-shirt.

The fuck if Lindi was gonna let that happen.

His poor nose had finally stopped bleeding at least and she pulled his soiled shirt over his head, using the clean bottom part and a rather grossly large amount of unladylike spit to clean his face and upper chest.

She didn't notice and wouldn't have cared if she had that most of the spit diluted blood had ended up griming her arms and once white tank top. She was a vet's daughter after all, and used to blood.

"Give me a shirt." She demanded from the silent, sullen circle still standing loosely around her and Jack.

"Ah fuck you and your freak..." One boy sneered and when he took a step forward Lindi tensed and readied for a new attack. But a young man stepped forward as well and clubbed the the first to the ground with almost bored efficiency, stepping over the unconscious belligerant to strip off what Lindi knew was an obscenely expensive silk T-shirt.

He handed it to Lindi and tried to catch her eye.

"I'm sorry. I'd have stopped them if I had noticed what they were doing."

And that for Lindi was the last straw. She almost attacked the young man on the spot.

"Fuck you!" She hissed, her soice soft but choking with deadly venom. "Don't you talk to me. Don't you dare. As if-rich boy like you notice Jack getting his ass kicked?"

And if he had noticed? A boy like this? He'd have stood around to laugh. Not stepped in to stop it.

He read exactly what she was thinking and his eyes narrowed.

"You don't know me. Don't presume to judge me."

And Lindi lost it then, she actually spat at him. And that wasn't her way.

Her momma had died when she, the baby of her family, was only four. Her daddy and three brothers had all raised Lindi. Somehow managing to teach her how to behave as a gracious lady of the house.

And for all that Lindi had also grown up to be a strong, fiery woman who could when it was needed cold cock a man half again her weight, she was a lady. And ladies didn't spit at anyone. Even those who really, really deserved it.

She almost apologized. Honestly, she really almost did. But then Jack made a soft sound.

And she kicked him instead, hard as she could, sweeping him off his feet so that he crashed down on his back.

She sighed, grabbing Jack, pulling him through the circle.

"Dad is so gonna bawl me out when he hears about this. Spitting, and then I just had to go and kick the fucker. Come on Jack, let's go get some ice cream before dad gets his hands on me."

"Ohhh, Linni Lin, were you bad?" Jack asked, eyes wide.

"Actually Jack, I think I was pretty good. My soul is gonna sleep fine tonight. Come on, bet I can even find you a new Power Ranger's shirt."

And she would get him that damn shirt, even if she had to pay to have one custom made.