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“On account of him wearing suits all the time. That’s what Shelby called him.” Nodding, she waited to see how much more they knew about her older brother. “Dad called him a faggot. I had to look that up. It’s not a nice word. But it does say that he’s a homosexual. I don’t know what that is either.”
“Homo means man or human. Sexual means that he likes men.” She thought about what she’d said and nearly apologized, but she wasn’t going to lie to them. “I’ve only talked to Philip a couple of times since he left home. He has a couple of kids. I think they might be a little bit older than you two. I’ve never met them. But he is, now that Shelby is dead, going to come and visit us in a couple of weeks. I don’t know what to expect from him. As I said, I’ve only talked to him a few times over the years.”
“Will he bring his kids and…I don’t know what to call them.” She told them her brother’s partner’s name. “Okay, so Uncle Jackson. I’d like to meet someone other than my…other than Shelby, who might be nice to us. You will be, won’t you?”
“Nice? Sure. I’m a bit of a bitch, but I think you might be all right with that.” Both kids laughed and startled Hero awake. After looking around, the kitten settled back down and closed his eyes. “I guess I should curb my language a bit, huh? I’m not used to kids just so you know. I don’t know that I was one, it seems like so long ago.”
“You’re married to Uncle Lance. He’s the glass blower. We had to look that up, too, when we got here. Uncle Denver said that looking words up that we don’t know will make us remember them better. The problem is, I don’t spell so well. But the computer that we share is helpful in asking if we mean something else. I’ve learned a lot of new words by having to look things up that I’ve misspelled.” She told them that all she had was a dictionary to use. It didn’t give her any help when she was looking words up. “Gosh, I’d never know anything if that was all I had.”
“I know just what you’re saying. But I have a good education as well as a couple of college degrees. I was what people call brilliant. I can read something or smell or taste it, and I will remember it forever.” Susan said that would be great to have. “You’d think that. But it gets me into trouble more than not. When you remember everything you read, it makes it difficult to hold down a job when you can recite word-for-word rules that are being broken. Also, and this one is the most troublesome, I can remember a voice that I hear and tell you who it was. It’s a pain in the ass most of the time.”
They both laughed with her and she felt herself relaxing a good deal more. They talked about different things. Mostly skipping over the life they had with her brother. She was able to pull out her cell phone, too, and show them pictures of her other nieces as well as the new baby that Philip and Jackson had.
“I think his name is Rory. Philip called him that, but Jackson called him Roy. So, I’m not entirely sure. But he’s a cutie, don’t you think?” Susan corrected her. “Oh well, yeah, I guess he would be handsome. Anyway, they’ll be coming here in a couple of weeks. And they’ll be staying with Lance and I.”
She wanted to ask them if they wanted to stay with her, too, but they seemed to be so settled in here. Not that she blamed them. There was a nice pool out back, and they both had their own rooms that were decorated just how they wanted. If she was a kid, she’d want to stay here too.
“Are you going to take us home with you?” Startled, she asked Susan if she wanted to go home with her. “Not to be mean, but no. Uncle Denver and Aunt Bailee have been super nice to us. Not to mention, we get to go to the school that is close. Billy and I, we don’t know you guys at all.”
“That’s true. But you didn’t know them either when you moved in. But I’m not going to force you into anything about moving. You both seem to be settled here, and I’m all right with that. But I would very much so like to get to know you both better. Even if it’s from my home to yours.” She wouldn’t say this to anyone, but it hurt her that they didn’t want to stay with her and Lance. But then, like she’d told herself, they were settled here and happy. “Lance and I are going to have a pool put in this fall so that when you do come over for a visit, you’ll have something to play around in. Like you guys, I’m getting used to people being nice to me.”
“It’s hard, huh?” The tears spilled over onto her cheeks, and Billy handed Hero off to his sister, and sat on her lap. Georgie held him as tightly as he’d let her before he was finished hugging her. “Nobody hugged us in our entire life before coming here. Aunt Bailee does it all the time now. Even in public.”
“Yeah?” She laughed a little. “I didn’t have a lot of hugs growing up either. Thank you for being my first in a very long time.” He didn’t move, for which she was grateful for. They sat in silence for a long time until Hero made a move, like he wanted to go out to go to the bathroom. “Uncle Lance told him that he wasn’t to do his business in the houses. He said he’d find himself in the barn again if he did. And you know what, he’s not. We’d better take him out before he forgets his manners and leaves a puddle on the floor.”
As soon as she closed the door to the outdoors, she could feel tension in the air. It was like a cloud of it had pulled down the shade to the pretty afternoon and put a bad vibe in the area. Opening the door, she told the kids to go inside, and Georgie was so happy when they snatched up Hero and, without question, went into the house. It didn’t take long after that that Denver came out into the deck with her. He asked her what spooked her.
“Just like that, you think I’m spooked?” He said that the kids told him she was freaking out. “I don’t know if I’d call it…Denver, along the tree line there, do you see that bright spark when the sun hits it right? I’m not saying that it’s a gun, but it’s something.”
“Will you go inside, too?” She said that she thought that Bailee would murder her if anything were to happen to him. “She might at that, but I’m more afraid of Lance hurting me if anything happened to you. Please? Will you go into the house for me? I promise that I won’t do anything—”
The volley of bullets skimmed just over their heads. Dropping to the deck, to where they were no longer visible from the tree line, they crawled on their bellies to the side of the house. Lying on the nice newly cut grass, the two of them seemed to be all right. She heard the roar of cats and human screaming just as she thought that they could stand up. It was Denver who told her to be still for a bit longer, at least until the others told them things were clear.
“All right. We can get up now.” She did so but made sure that there was no blood on either of them before standing on the deck again. Seeing the lions, it looked to be about six of them, made her feel marginally better, but she was still scared out of her nickers, as her mother used to say from what just happened. It was Lance who came toward her first, shifting into his other self as he reached for her.
“I knew she was going to cause trouble.” Georgie wanted to ask him what had happened, but the kids needed to be reassured first. They clung to Denver like he was everything to them, and she decided that she wasn’t going to try and talk them into coming to live with her and Lance. They were happy just where they were. “It’s Ange. Or it was.”
She looked at Lance, then out at the tree line again. “She was going to kill us? Christ, all I did was leave her employment.” He told her how she’d come by the office today and that Grayson put her in her place. “I’m glad it’s over, but the kids, I was more terrified for them than…what if they’d been out here with me? They were for a few minutes before I sent them in the house.”
Everyone settled down, and she even began to feel a great deal better. The family was safe and she was thrilled beyond words for that. Deciding that it was a perfect afternoon for hot dogs, Denver fired up the grill and made what seemed to her about a thousand hot dogs for everyone. There wasn’t anything else, not even some chips, but it was the best meal she’d had in a long time. And the company was very good too.
At five-thirty, after all the kids were sent to the grandparent’s house, Ronan and Bailee joined them. Cybil would be summoned by Ronan, and her punishment would be done by him. As Denver wasn’t in charge when she broke so many rules, it was going to be Ronan who did the deed. She’d be killed, and it wouldn’t be an easy way to go either. She was going to get her comeuppance tonight, and she was glad that they didn’t have to worry about one more sicko coming around again.
She still let her thoughts wonder over what Ange had done. How did she think killing her was going to get her business back up and running? All the people who had worked there when she did had left after she had, and it was a small wonder that anyone would want to be associated with her if she had succeeded in killing her. People were odd, she thought and thought that she could go her entire life without interacting with them ever again.
Chapter 5
Cybil could almost have killed someone just to test the theory that she could get by with anything. Today, she’d gone into someone’s backyard and took a hamburger right off their grill. There hadn’t been anyone around, thankfully, but she enjoyed her first hot meal since trying to get her daughter to get up off her ass and make her feel welcome.
At this point, she didn’t care if she was welcome or not. She just wanted her to hand over some funds so that she could get a bath and her hair done, as well as her nasty looking nails. Good Lord, they looked like she was biting them again.
Asking questions around town, she did find out that her daughter had money for her. Or why all of a sudden they moved here into great big houses with servants and shit got her nowhere. Where was her part in all this, was the fifty-four-dollar question. There was a great deal of it, too. Not only that, but she was working with a foundation that would give people money if they showed they needed it. Hell, she needed it more than the milk shops that showed up at their door. She would have gone in and gotten some for herself, but she couldn’t get in the door. Some kind of magic prevented her from even touching the handle to get in.
Yesterday, when she’d heard about the place, she realized that she’d been there a couple of times already. But once she reached for the handle, she was tossed back a few feet and landed on her ass. Of course, there were a lot of people around when she landed, and they had a wonderful time laughing at her like she’d just done a trick like a clown would have done. She hated people.
There was no reason, none whatsoever, for her to be treated like she wasn’t a thing to her daughter. Caroline should be thanking her lucky stars to have a mom like her. Hell, she only came around her when she wanted money and didn’t drag on a lunch by talking about the kids all the time. She had one grandchild, and she didn’t like him at all. The nosey little fucker.
This morning, when she woke up, she found herself back in the little town that her daughter lived in. The continuous rain was gone as well. Things might have seemed better to most people, but she was still without a place to sleep and food in her belly. It was unfair of the fates to just give her out little bits at a time of good news and take away the rest. No one understood the complexities of her life. That was all.
