The car still got away. By the time Richard made it into the street, that Chrysler, even with one bum tire and no back windshield, had turned a corner and was clean out of sight.
Richard was angry they got away, but he ran back to his Porsche to make certain Janet was okay. People in the mill were running outside, too, to see what all the fuss was about. But Richard didn’t even look their way. He ran to his car.
“I’m okay,” Janet said quickly, as soon as she sat up and saw that look of terror in his already overly-expressive big green eyes. “I’m okay. I wasn’t hit. Did you see who it was?”
“No. I couldn’t see shit through all that tint on the windows. I took out the back windshield but by that time they were too far away. I did put a slug in the gunman.”
Janet looked at him. She realized how little she truly knew about him! He put a slug into somebody? He said it as if it was no big deal at all.
Richard saw that look on her face. He knew it sounded strange to her, that he would be that proficient a shot, but she didn’t know the half of it. He pulled her out of the car and pulled her into his arms. This part of his life, where he sometimes had to defend himself against some very unscrupulous characters, was a part he had hoped would never rear its ugly head around her.
But it already had.
Twice.
And he began to feel a surge of dread. What was he doing, he wondered, bringing her into his sordid life?
But she was in now. And he wasn’t letting her back out. He just had to protect her.
No matter what the cost to himself, or anybody else.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
They were at Janet’s house. Richard was up front, yelling at his people on the phone again, and Janet and Mo were in Janet’s bedroom. She was packing. Mo was already packed.
“You sure this a good idea, Baby Girl?” Mo asked her as he sat on the edge of her bed.
“He wants me out of town until he gets some answers,” she said. They had already told Mo about the brakes. “He’s worried I’m being targeted.”
“But why would somebody be targeting you? Because you’re with Richard Shetfield now and them bitches and hoes don’t like it?”
Janet smiled. “I wouldn’t call them those names, Mo.”
“Then what you gon’ call’em? Gold Diggers? Hoochie Mamas? Sluts?”
“Ladies was the term I was thinking of,” said Janet.
Even Mo had to smile at that one. “Yeah, that too.”
“And truthfully,” Janet said, “I originally thought the same thing. That some lady that likes him might not like the fact that I’m with him. But he’s not so certain about that.”
“He may be right,” Mo said. “Those Shetfields have such a lousy reputation that it could be anybody.”
Then Mo shook his head. He was worried for Janet. “All this violence around this one man. Makes you wonder.”
“Makes you wonder what?” Janet asked him.
“What he done got himself into, Baby Girl.”
Janet stopped folding a blouse and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been on God’s green earth seventy years and nobody ain’t never been shooting at me or jimmy-rigging my brakes. But you just got with this joker and already both of them things happened to you. Something don’t smell right, Baby Girl.”
“Just spit it out, Mo.”
“What if he’s a drug dealer?” Mo asked in a lowered voice. “What if that’s the real Shetfield business?”
Janet was shocked he said that. Richard selling drugs? Was he insane? She rejected that notion out of hand. “There’s no way Richard sells drugs,” she said, and continued packing.
But Mo still wasn’t so sure. “How would you know what he do and don’t do?” he asked. “You don’t know him like that to be proclaiming what he will or will not do.”
But Janet was still shaking her head. “He’s no drug dealer.”
“But what if he is? What then, Janet?”
Janet didn’t stop packing, but she slowed down. She’d be devastated. Mo knew that. That was why he’d warned her.
“And now he wants to take you out of town to Texas of all places?”
“That was his big brother’s idea,” said Janet.
“His brother?” Even that sounded suspicious to Mo. “These people just met you, but you want me to believe even his brother cares about you too?”
“Not me. He cares about Richard. He wants Richard out of town until it all blows over.”
“Blows over. Got you talking like a gangster.”
Janet laughed.
But Mo was worried. “I don’t know, Baby Girl,” he said. “I need you to slow down and think this through. What if they are shady? What if you’re getting yourself involved with some big-time unsavory people? I just want you to slow down before you get in too deep, okay?”
“Okay,” Janet said, although her heart was already feeling as if it was in as deep as it could get in.
“Who all’s going on this trip?” Mo asked.
“Richard and myself, his brother Spencer and Spencer’s fiancée Fiona. And you, Mo.”
“Oh, I already knew I was going when he said you were going. Where you go, I go.”
“Quit lying,” Janet said with a smile. “You never invite me to the casino with you and the Golden Girls.”
“I said where you go, I go. I ain’t never said nothing about where I go, you go.”
Janet laughed. Then her smile eased up as the heaviness of what she was actually doing, and what had actually happened over the past two days, began to sink in.
Mo saw her changed look too. “What’s going through that head of yours?” he asked her.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked why.”
“Why what?”
“Why would a man like him go through all of this trouble for me? Why would he want me?” Janet said.
“Why would I ask you questions like that? Why do you want him is the question I’d ask! He’s the one getting the prize, not you. Why would you want to be bothered with a man with a reputation for fooling around with all those different ladies, as you call’em? Why would you want to be with a man who has violence following him? Why him, is my question.”
Janet exhaled. “Because I liked him from the moment I laid eyes on him six years ago. And when we came together again, it was like we had never parted. Like we were picking up where we left off.”
“Except you did part ways six years ago,” Mo said. “And you parted emptyhanded. He, on the other hand, parted with your virginity. Looks like he got the better of that deal.”
“Depends on how you look at it,” Janet said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He parted after being given my virginity. He didn’t take it. But that’s true. I lost my virginity to him. But he gave me a brand-new Mercedes S-class.”
Mo looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “A Mercedes?”
“A top of the line Mercedes.”
Mo started looking around, as if it could be under her bed. “Where it’s at?” he asked excitedly.
“That was six years ago, Mo! And besides, I gave it back.”
Mo was stunned. “You gave it back? Are you brain dead? Who gives back a Mercedes-Benz?!”
“A woman who doesn’t want her foster father referring to her as one of Richard Shetfield’s hoes and bitches and whatever else you call them. A woman who preferred to get her own car, and keep her self-respect.”
Mo nodded. “I hear you, baby. You was a fool, but I hear ya’.”
Janet laughed. “Bump you!” she said playfully. “Just go get ready.”
“I’m already ready.” He stood up. “But I’ll get out of your hair. Just one more thing though.”
Janet looked at him. Oh, Lord, what, she wondered. “What?” she asked.
“When I was a young man,” Mo said, “I was considered very good looking just like Shetfield is considered. And the thing about men that go
od looking? Most, not all, but most are not reliable.”
Janet stared at Mo. “Were you reliable?”
“No,” said Mo honestly. “Not in the least.”
Janet’s heart squeezed. And she continued staring at him.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” he said. “That’s all I’m saying to you.”
Janet nodded, and he left her alone.
Then she looked at the blouse in her hand, and she thought about how her life was so upside down right now that it caused her to sit down herself. She had no job. She had missed the interview she was going to when her brakes went out. She didn’t even have her Honda Civic anymore. And now she was going to go to Texas with Richard, and take poor Mo with her? To meet the Shetfields? To meet the vampires?
And the way Richard handled that gun. It was like he was a police officer or somebody. And the deference the police gave to him. It could have been because he was rich and they knew it. Or it could have been fear. Fear of a drug dealer. Or an arms dealer. Or somebody equally shady!
Mo told her she needed to slow her ass down and not get her hopes up. Mo never led her wrong. She slowed her ass back down.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Fiona was like a chatterbox the entire trip to Texas, but as soon as Richard’s plane descended onto the tarmac in Arrowhead, Texas, a small town just outside of Corpus Christi, she started answering a text message on her phone and forgot all about Janet. Which was fine by Janet. Fiona was talking her ears off! And it was all about Fiona.
During that time, Janet would glance over at Richard, who sat a couple rows from them reviewing paperwork. He’d look up, shake his head and roll his eyes, making Janet fight hard not to laugh. And then she’d glance over at Spencer, Fiona’s fiancé, who sat beside Richard, but he was completely ignoring her chatter.
At one point, when Fiona got up and went to use the restroom, Mo, who had been sitting across from Janet and Fiona, leaned toward Janet. “Damn that woman can talk,” he said, and Spencer heard it and laughed out loud. But Fiona came back and started talking nonstop again. So much so that Mo fell asleep.
He was still asleep as the plane taxied along the runway. Janet noticed a big, tall man, in faded blue jeans and a blazer, with a big hat on his head, waiting beside a Lincoln Navigator SUV, with a woman standing beside him with a cell phone and a clipboard in her hand. Were they there to meet their plane, or somebody else’s, she wondered?
She nudged Fiona. After all that talking Janet had been subjected to, the least Fiona could do, Janet felt, was answer a question. “Who’s that?” she asked.
Fiona looked up from her phone and glanced out of the window. “That’s Montgomery,” she said as she looked back down at her phone. “Their big brother. Isn’t he dreamy? I can’t stand him.”
Janet looked at her. “Why not?”
“He’s a pain in the gluteus maximus,” Fiona said with a grin.
Janet smiled too. To know Fiona was to love her, even though she got on Richard’s last nerve. Even though Richard told Janet how she made some snide comment about expecting her to be more beautiful, but that was nothing to Janet. She’d heard far worse than that her whole life.
She looked back at the man Fiona called Montgomery. And the nice-looking lady standing beside him. She leaned toward Fiona again. “Is that his wife with him? Or girlfriend?” she asked.
“Is she white?” Fiona asked without looking away from her text messages.
Janet found that an odd thing to ask. She looked at Fiona. “Yes.”
“Then that’s not his woman,” Fiona said.
Janet wanted to ask why not, since he was white, too, but she didn’t bother. Fiona’s answer could be sweet and to the point, or it could go on for days. Janet decided against taking that chance.
She, instead, decided to wake up Mo. And like every time when he was suddenly awakened, he sat straight up, with his eyes wide open, and started asking those same four questions he always asked. “Who? What? Where? Why?”
Fiona laughed. “You wake up weird,” she said with a grin.
But Mo fired right back at her. “No you ain’t calling nobody weird,” he said, and Spencer laughed.
Janet quickly interrupted him before Fiona could catch what he had said. “In any event, Mo,” Janet said, “we’ve landed. Do you need to use the rest room before we get off?”
“I do, matter of fact,” he said, looking crossly at Fiona. And he got up and headed down the aisle.
When Mo returned to his seat, Richard handed all of that paperwork he was signing over to one of his assistants who apparently flew with him everywhere he went, and then he went over to Janet and reached out his hand. “Come here for a minute,” he said to her. She took his hand, stood up, and went with him to the back of the plane.
Fiona smiled and looked back at them as Richard took Janet into his bedroom aboard the plane and closed the door. She looked back at Mo, grinning. “He’s taking her to his bedroom,” she said.
Mo stared at her. “You sure know how to tell it, don’t you?” he asked her.
But Fiona took it as a compliment. “Thank you,” she said with a big smile. “Thank you very much.”
Mo looked over at Spencer. Spencer, smiling too, hunched his shoulders. “She’s gorgeous,” he said to Mo. “What more you want?”
And Mo had to smile on that one.
But Janet wasn’t smiling when Richard closed his bedroom door and they stood at that door. Because she knew it wasn’t an intimate reason he took her back there. It was more serious than that. She could see the anguish in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.
At first Richard hesitated. At first, he was pulling her coat flaps together and rubbing the cashmere. Then he looked into her eyes. When he saw the concern there, he spoke. “I don’t like coming back to this town,” he said.
Janet didn’t hesitate. “We can fly right back out of here,” she said, “if you don’t want to be here.”
Richard looked at her. That was why he wanted her. She was a natural born ride or die. She would stand by him. “Don’t you want to know why I don’t like coming back here?”
“You don’t like it,” Janet said. “That’s all I need to know.”
Richard was so overwhelmed that he pulled her into his arms. And held her very tightly. “Thank you,” he whispered in her ear. “Thank you.”
He was more emotional than Janet thought she’d ever see from him, but it was still early days for them. And she held him just as tightly as he was holding her.
And then he pulled back. And that anguish was gone. “It feels good not to have to carry burdens alone, you know?” Richard said to her.
Janet nodded her head. “I know,” she said. “I feel the same way.”
Then Richard exhaled. “I have two brothers, as you know. Spencer and Montgomery. All three of us have the same mother and father. But there are countless others in this town who are not my mother’s children, but they’re my father’s.”
“Did they become your father’s while he was married to your mother?” Janet asked.
Richard nodded. “Oh, yes. Three, no, four of them graduated from the only high school in town, on the same day as I did,” he said.
Janet was blown away. “Three or four of them?” she asked.
“Four, yes,” said Richard. “And when Mom and Pop came to the graduation, those four graduates and even more kids went running up to him, calling him Dad just as bold, and he was smiling and hugging them and my mother could have fell through that floor. It was the first time she realized, and I realized, he had been cheating on her. But the rest of the town, and Monty too, already knew.”
“Your brother knew?” Janet asked. “And he didn’t tell your mother?”
“He never tells our father’s secrets. And he never will. He accepts things as they are. I can’t do that.” Then he frowned. I hate coming back to this town.”
“Then why did you come this time?”
“Because I needed to get you
out of Oklahoma and around Monty, somebody I trust that can help me protect you. Because I need you to meet my parents and get it out of your system because I doubt if I’ll be bringing you back this way again.”
“Even to see your mother?”
“She stayed with Pop after my graduation. I asked her how could she stay with that monster after the shame he brought on all of us. Did she not have any pride about herself? But she said pride won’t pay the bills. And back then, my old man held all the purse strings. She stayed for the money and the position. So, to answer your question, no, I won’t be bringing you back even to see my mother.”
Janet stared at Richard. He could be very vindictive, she saw that right off. But for good reason! “How many children, in total, do you think your father has in this town?”
Richard didn’t skip a beat. “It was at least twenty when I was still living here. Probably way more than that now,” he said.
Janet was floored. She’d heard of mucked-up families before. Families like the Henleys. But not on this scale!
She pulled Richard into her arms again. “I’m with you, Richard,” she said. “And we’re a team.” Then she pulled back. Was she being presumptuous? “Right?”
Richard smiled a heartwarming smile. “Right,” he said. “And you’re the boss of the team!”
Janet laughed. “Sure I am,” she said.
Although Richard was smiling, too, he meant what he said. “Let’s get this over with,” he said as he kissed her on the lips.
But, as usual with the two of them, it wasn’t enough to kiss and go. He was unzipping and pulling out, and unbuttoning her pants and pulling down, and then entering her.
He lifted her legs, putting them over his arms, and with her back against the door they made love on his plane for the first time ever. And the way it made Richard feel, and the headiness of it, caused him to cum early and cum first. He poured into Janet. But kept going, to make sure Janet came too.
Plain Jane Evans and the Billionaire Page 17
