Page 7 of Dallas

“Mr. President, you were never supposed to know. Carol has kept her end of the bargain, and now that you know, we’re going to have to ask you to keep quiet about it as well.” Jamie asked the man why he needed to do that. “Because for all intents and purposes, the woman that she was is dead, and it would be better for everyone if she’s not suddenly alive.”

“So all the times we were on the campaign trail, she…that’s why she didn’t want to stand for pictures unless they were far enough away. And she usually moved her head…Christ, do you have any idea how many fights we’ve had over that very thing? For her not to move around…I could have gotten her noticed and killed.” No one denied what he was saying as a lie. “What am I supposed to do now? And where is she? You said that you contacted her. Where is she right now?”

“We’ve taken her into custody and hidden her away.” Jamie asked the man, Richard, something, she only just remembered how that was supposed to help. “I don’t know that it will help her, but we’re trying to keep her safe. She, at the time, was vital to our operations and will continue to be so until such time as she’s caught. For now, she’s safe, and that’s all you have to worry about.”

“I’ll tell you what I have to worry about, and you will not use that tone with me. I will fucking own your ass if you don’t come clean and tell me what she’s done that you’ve taken such measures to keep her safe from me.” He told Jamie that it wasn’t him that he was worried about. It was the fact that he suddenly had a sister. “I don’t suddenly have shit, you moron. Amy has been my sister all her life. If you were half as good as you pretend to be, you would have found her long before—you didn’t try all that hard, is all I can think now. If you had, you would have known that she was living not a thousand miles from me and had been in contact with me via phone since I’d been in the office. Hell, she’s been to the White House too.”

“Mr. President, we’re trying to give you as much information as we can without you being in jeopardy.” Jamie ran his hands through his hair and over his face. A sure sign he was about as pissed off as she’d ever seen him. “Suffice it to say that without her help, we’d be in worse shape as a nation than we would have been.”

“That’s not enough. Tell me or don’t, but I’m going to make enough waves that you have to come clean with me, or I’ll do something drastic.” Richard asked her brother if he was threatening him. “I guess I am. You tell me or—”

She’d not seen anyone move. Suddenly, Jamie was on the floor, and there were five of the biggest gorillas standing around him. Dallas was the only one standing as his human self. The other men in the room, the ones with guns, were pointing their weapons at the place where Jamie had been standing. She and her mom were standing with her dad and four more gorillas. She could only assume it was Dallas’ grandparents who were standing around them. No one moved until Dallas cleared his throat.

“Now, this is what is going to happen right now. Tell them to drop their weapons, or we’ll tear their arms out of their sockets and beat them to death with them. I’m not shitting you right now. It’s them alive when they leave, or you’re going to need a lot of body bags. Because I can guarantee you that if they kill those men, we’re going to kill the lot of you as well.” The guns, all of them, were dropped to the floor. Two of the Secret Service men even tossed their pocket knives to the floor, too. “Good. Now, you’ll back off, and we’ll all be a good deal happier. I know that I will as Silverback to this troop.”

“You just opened up a can of shit that you can’t handle, young man.” Dallas asked Richard if he was sure of that. “You bet I am. I will make a single phone call, and you’ll all be before a firing squad in the morning.”

“By morning, you’ll be dead, Mr. Douglas. And so will all the men and women in this house that you brought with you. If you think that I’m joking with you, have a look around this room. Do you see one person that is armed and on your side? You’ll notice that this household’s staff are holding weapons pointed at your head and that of the men that I’ve easily disarmed. I’m not fucking around with you when I tell you that we consider the Parkerson family a part of this troop. You cooperate, or you’ll be—”

“Do you have any idea how many laws you’ve broken by drawing a weapon on the Secret Service as well as the man in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation?” Dallas told Douglas that he didn’t, not right off the top of his head. “You won’t be so smart when I bring you before the government.”

“You don’t think so? Well, I have it on good authority that you drew a weapon on the President of the United States. And that without the help of me and my family, you might well have killed him. Not to mention his entire family. I could also mention that you pushed your way into my parents’ house, good citizens, all of them, and scared them.” Douglas pointed out that none of them looked as afraid as his men did right now. “Yes, sir. About that. Do you think that anyone is going to believe that the good citizens of my family are all gorillas? If that is the route that you’re planning on going.”

Amy heard laughter and realized it was coming from her brother and father. Looking at Jamie as he parted the troop that had saved him, she could see that he was finding a great deal of humor in what was being said and done. After hugging Dallas and asking Mom and Dad if they were all right, he stood in front of Douglas with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Well, Douglas? Is that the way you were going to present this to the public? That your men, the twenty of them, were taken down by a wonderful family that is marrying into my family were a bunch of gorillas?” Dallas corrected Jamie. “I’m sorry. A troop of gorillas. Who do you think they’re going to believe when I explain to them that we were here making plans for a large wedding of my little sister, and you just barged your way in and started waving guns around like some kind of national secret was about to be released? What will you say when they ask what that might have been? That my wife of nineteen years is some sort of spy who helped the government when she was nothing more than a child so that you could arrest a bunch of bad guys? Or the part where you thought it would be all right for national security to allow the next president of the United States to marry her and bring her to the White House? So many questions. Will you have answers to them all? Doubtful.”

“Now see here. This is not the way things are supposed to go.” Amy stepped in front of her brother and Dallas. “What is it that you want, little girl? I have enough going on without you butting your nose in.”

All Amy felt was the swoosh of air as Dallas moved beside her. Jamie had moved as well, but not nearly as quickly as Dallas had. His arm had reached out to Douglas with his fist connecting with the other man’s face so quickly that she wouldn’t have believed that he’d moved it not for Douglas flying, like a plane without wings, across the room and hitting the wall. As he slid to the floor, his body limp with unconsciousness, his men didn’t move to retaliate. In fact, a few of them covered their heads like they might well have been next on Dallas’ list of men to hit.

“Dallas Dixon, did you have to beat me to hitting him?” He told his grandda that he had insulted his future wife. “I heard. I would have loved to have hit him myself. If you don’t mind, next time, let an old man have a try or two at him. The nerve of some people. Boys, take out the trash if you’d not mind.”

In less time than it took for the room to fill up with the men in suits, they were out of the house. Betty, Dallas’ mom, had even gotten a broom out and was smacking them around with it to hurry things along. Both of Dallas’ grandmothers had gone to the kitchen to start on breakfast, fussing about how they’d messed up any chances of getting a good night’s sleep with all this going on. Amy looked at her parents.

“I have to tell you, honey, this is the most fun that I’ve had in a very long time. It’s good to see that you’re in with a good family. Not to mention one that isn’t afraid to say exactly what they think and get it done.” He hugged her tightly. “Welcome back to the family, sweetie. I’m so very happy that you’ve found someone who can treat you right and who isn’t afraid of exposing himself for the good of all of us.”

“I’m glad that you like him, Dad, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do having a mate, soon-to-be husband, and what are we supposed to do about Carol? It’s a lot to take in.” He told her he wasn’t worried anymore. “I’m glad that one of us isn’t. I’m terrified that this is going to come back and bite us in the ass.”

“You’ll see, honey. Things will work out.” She hoped so. Going to the kitchen to see if she could help out, the grandmothers peppered her with questions.

Mostly about her life and the house that her grandparents had left her. Dad had gone to talk to Dallas, so she was free to talk to them about anything that they asked. She was sure that some of their questions were far too personal, but she was just too stressed to think about that right now.

Chapter 4

Dallas hadn’t known what to expect when they went to the house that Amy had owned. It was in excellent shape but for a few things that needed to be replaced, such as the furnace and some of the bricks that were missing on the front steps to the grand old house. Other than that, it looked to him like they could just move right in.

The kitchen had been redone just a year ago, and it looked really good. Expensive as well as cutting edge. He was excited too that the herb garden that was just outside the back of the house was in such good repair as well. As they walked through the lower level of the house, him admiring the old feel to it. He was struck by how wealthy the house made him think that the Parkerson family really was.

“I was just thinking about all the parties that my grandparents used to have when they lived here. Christmas was a huge deal for them. They’d gather up all the families and have them spend the night. I remember having to share my room with a lot of cousins who I barely knew.” She laughed. “I wasn’t terribly nice to them because I hated to share, but we got along well enough.”

“You had a room here? I have one still at both my grandparents’ homes too. I haven’t stayed in some time now, but it’s nice to know that I have a place to sleep if need be.” She said that she’d not been in the house for a decade or two. “That’s so sad. But I don’t know how else we would have met had you been living here instead of where you were.”

“Fate, I guess.” She seemed distracted, and he wondered if it was him or something else. Asking her about it, she didn’t answer right away. Then, when she did, he was shocked by her answer. “I’m terrified about us having a life together. Not that I don’t think it will work. I’m sure that it will, but it’s the start of it that scares me. I guess mostly it’s because I don’t know what you expect from me.”

“Expect from you? Nothing. I mean, I hope I can make you happy. I’ll work hard at that. But I don’t expect you to do anything you don’t want to do.” She nodded and headed toward the dining room, so he followed her. “What does make you happy, Amy? I’m sure that you have some things that you enjoy doing that you want to do. What are they?”

“To be honest with you, Dallas, I don’t know if I’ve ever been really happy. I have a little bit more college to go before I have my doctorate. I am going to finish that. I’ll have a good job that I love taking pictures of animals around town.” He asked her what her doctorate was for. “Oh, law. I used to be an attorney. Well, I guess I still am. But it all seemed to be one-sided, so I decided that I wanted to be a judge. Now? Well, I’m not sure what I want to do. I do want to help out my brother with some of the projects that he has going on, but there was never a time when I could come forward about them while I was hiding out. Hiding of my own accord, I guess you could say.”

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