Instead of just tossing the stones, some of which were a good size, they began stacking them in a way that would curve the waterway back into its original path. With the water only a trickle most of the time, it had moved in an easier way, and that was where the flooding had come into play.
“Samson, did you hear? Harley and Marcus each have them a house. When are you getting one?” He smiled at Fisher and tossed a small fish at him. “Very funny. Want me to tell your mate when she comes how you managed to pick out your name?”
“I don’t care. I’m sure that sooner or later, she’ll hear about it.” The cat coming toward them made them all pause. Bryant was standing closest to him, and he poked him when he didn’t stop working. “I don’t know that cat, do you?”
“It’s Harper.” Samson looked at his brother so quickly that he nearly slipped in the water. “Don’t tell her I told you—she wants you guys to guess who she is. I don’t know if she realizes this or not, but if she gets much closer, you’ll smell her anyway.”
Samson kept an eye on the younger woman. She was new to walking on four feet, and it showed. But what didn’t show was her fear of being a big cat. When she laid down by the water, next to his mom, he tipped an imaginary hat at her.
I didn’t think you’d know me. Samson told her what Bryant had said about smelling her. Not that Bryant had told him, but that he could smell her. Oh, I didn’t think of that. Bryant said I’m a pretty cat. Well, that’s not actually what he said, but my version will embarrass both of us less.
Samson burst out laughing. She was a pistol, Harper was. He was glad that she was part of his family now. He asked her about the to-do in town, the robbery and such. She shifted and was dressed in one smooth movement. Samson was proud of her for that.
“The robbery report is going down as the police saw the robbers enter the building, and entered before they had a chance to hurt anyone. It’s going down as a little town hitting it big. Most of the townspeople are just thrilled that you were there to keep them safe. I guess they all knew about the robberies from before. I’m taking on a part-time job as photographer for the newspaper.” It was a quick change of subject, but if the looks on everyone’s faces were any indication, they’d caught it too. Bryant asked if she was finished with picture taking locally. “No. I’ve been enjoying that part of it now that I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”
Mom snorted before speaking. “They all think that she’s wacky. Like she’s a batty old woman who yells and screams a lot, but takes the best pictures ever seen. Just the other day I came up on her when she was taking pictures of a bunch of those squealing teenage girls. She was screaming at them, telling them to stand still, and they all did it. I don’t know if they were afraid of her or humoring her until they got finished. Then she invited them to have pizza with her. Craziest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
“How did the pictures turn out?” Everyone laughed when her answer to Pops was just a smile. “There’s my girl. You keep them kids in line and they’ll behave when they’re around town. I don’t believe that, but one can hope.”
The dam was down. The stones that were lined up on either side of the faster moving water were keeping things where they should be. As they followed the water downstream, Harley was telling them how this water ran behind his new home, and that it was deep enough to go swimming in. Also, he was going to go fishing in it. They saw his house a few minutes before it was fully in view. It was much bigger than he’d thought it would be. But the real kicker was that it looked like it had just been built.
~*~
Allie laid her head on the bar as the man spoke to her about her sister and brothers. She knew that they’d eventually be put down like the dogs that they were, and she hadn’t had anything to do with them since she’d come home from work one night and found her mom and dad in bed with bullets in their chests.
It had been Howie that had done it. At twelve he was already acting like Serenity, the leader of their little band of fools. When she realized there was a pause in the conversation, she asked him to repeat himself.
“I asked if you wanted to come and claim the bodies. Your youngest brother, Howard, is still alive, but he’s in the hospital for wounds he sustained when the police came into the bank.” She told him no, she wasn’t claiming anything to do with them. “I’m to understand that you are related to them, correct?”
“Yes. I’m the oldest of the four of us, but I still want nothing to do with them. They made their respective beds. As far as I’m concerned, they can lie in them.” He sputtered around for several seconds. “I don’t know how you were able to track me down, and frankly I could care less. But we broke up being anything to do with family when they killed our parents. You want them claimed? Then I suggest you find some other sucker that knows them. This chick was finished with them a long time ago.”
Hanging up the phone, she felt no better about her family than she had before. Allie supposed that she could be happy they were off this planet; they should have been killed a long time ago. But it wasn’t any of her business now. When she’d left the only home she’d ever known after burying her parents, she’d gotten a restraining order against her siblings and changed her phone number and address. Never again, she thought, would they come to her for anything.
Not that they did anymore. She supposed them having more money than anyone else because of the bank robberies would make her useless to them. Again, she didn’t care. They were out of her life, forever now, and she was happy for it.
“You all right, Al?” She nodded at Ben, who sat at the end of the bar where she had been on the phone. “They were killed right here in Ohio. Did you know that?”
“No. I stopped reading the news and watching it a long time ago. If it’s not sports, it’s not on my need to watch list.” He smiled and asked for another cold one. Pulling him a beer, she slid it in front of him as she picked up the burgers at the window. “You eating tonight, Ben? We have chili cheese fries if you want them.”
They didn’t have an extensive menu—Allie liked that about her place. They had chili on Wednesdays, and chili cheese fries on Thursdays. That was the only consistent thing. That and burgers. In fact, at the end of the night, Charlie would cook up all the left over burger meat from that day and freeze if for the chili that week. It cut down on waste, and people came from all over town to have a bowl of his chili.
“Allie, phone.”
She nodded at Charlie, who had answered it when she’d gone out to take an order. If it was that cop again, she was going to tear him a new ass. Allie had worked hard to own this place, and she wasn’t going to leave it here to go and bury her family. She’d done all the laying to rest of her family that she wanted in a single lifetime.
“Allison?” She knew the voice, and closed her eyes against the pain that it caused her. “Allison, it’s Howie. They’re arresting me.”
“What the fuck did you think was going to happen, Howie, when you went off to play big boy with Serenity and Heath? That you’d kill our parents then rob a few banks, and be able to live on easy street? No, it doesn’t work that way.” He started crying. It no longer worked on her; she didn’t even shed them for herself any longer. He asked if she’d come to get him. “No. And if there is nothing else, leave me alone, Howie. I told you once before, you are no longer my brother.”
“I messed up.” She didn’t even bother telling him that he had. Big time. “They’re saying that I’m going to go to prison for the rest of my life. Something about being tried as an adult.”
“Again, what did you expect to happen? You play the murderer, Howie, you have to expect to get all the points that come with it.” Howie was only fifteen now, and she felt guilty for not having some sort of emotional attachment to him. Or at least a little. “I’ll tell you what I told the cops—don’t call me again. I don’t want, nor do I need, you in my life.”
Hanging up the phone, she made her way out to the bar again. Ben was eating the cheese fries, and the place
was hopping again. While she had help on the weekend and Friday nights, she did the work herself through the week.
Taking the orders of a particularly loud group of young man, she carded them all and kicked one of them out for being underage. It took the threat of calling the cops before he finally left quietly. After that, it was a smooth night, and she finished up the last drink at midnight, when she closed.
After Ben and the rest of the people in the kitchen left, she sat in her office with the money laying on the desk. She wasn’t worried about anyone coming in to rob her this late at night. Not only was the locked door to her office thick steel, but she also had a gun. The panic button that she’d had put in when she’d opened the place rang right to the police. One push and they’d come running—or at least they’d better.
After counting out the till and getting things set up for tomorrow, she gathered the deposit and called for a ride. She drove—her bike was in the parking lot for her to take home. But she didn’t go to the bank alone. Allie wasn’t stupid enough to do that. Having a family like hers, she knew she wasn’t immune to getting robbed or killed.
One of the off-duty cops pulled up and she locked up the bar.
“Why aren’t you married?” She asked Morgan if he was proposing. “No. I like you, but you’re hard on a man. I heard about your date with Sam. Christ, he still has those bruises you gave him. Don’t you cut anyone any slack, honey?”
“Sure, if they deserve it. In his telling of his side of the story, did Sam happen to tell you that he tried to spike my drink and that I caught him at it? Then the fucker tried to talk me into just letting him fuck me, his words, so that he could go tell his buddies that he’d had the ice queen.” She looked at Morgan. “Do they really call me that?”
“He does. Well, he did. Not anymore.” Morgan laughed. “Well, I believe your version more than I do his. He said that you were coming on to him, and he had to literally beat you off with his fist. I could see that you weren’t hurt when I saw you the next day, so that made most of us think he was lying.”
“He was.” She watched the trees fly by as he took her to the bank. “Morgan, Serenity and the other robbers, you know that they’re related to me, don’t you?”
“Yes. Most of us did. We’ve been keeping an eye out for them for you. Did you hear about what happened?” She nodded, then told him that she had had phone calls from the police and Howie. “I thought they might find you. They’ve put out an all points looking for you across the state. I’m thinking, now that you said they called you, that your buddy Sam told them where you were.”
“I never thought of that. Fucker.” Morgan said that he’d take care of him, and she didn’t ask what that meant. People who fucked around with the police station here were reminded in a harsh way that things were their way, or get the hell out of town. “They wanted me to claim the bodies. And then Howie called to ask me if I could come and get him. Like I might stash him away in my pocket so he doesn’t have to go to prison. They’re trying him as an adult.”
“They would. You’re not going there, are you, sweetie?” She didn’t answer him, because she was getting out to drop her deposit. When she got back in the car, he eyed her with his stern look. “What are you planning to do, Allison?”
“Nothing. I swear to you, nothing at all. The only reason that I would go there is if they summoned me. And since I know that that’s not going to happen, I’m going to run my bar the way I want, and move on with my life as if nothing at all happened.” She looked at him. “Do you think I can do that?”
“No.” Morgan started the car up and drove her back to the bar. When they got there, she got out and sat on her bike. Morgan said her name. “If you happen to go, Allie, will you let me go with you? You know that an old queen vampire like me, I’d have your back better than any of those cops there might.”
“I’m not going, but if I do—which, as I said, I won’t—then I’ll take you.” She started her bike and rode it slowly to where Morgan was standing. “I don’t want to go, Morgan. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know, honey. But I also know that you loved that little boy like he was your own, and you mourned the loss of him when he went with that mad dog of a sister of yours like he was dead.” She said that was what she’d wanted to feel. “I’ll have a bag packed up to go when you’re ready. Kenny said that he’d run the bar for you while you were gone. He’s a good man, you know that.”
“I know that. You two love each other too, and that makes him my best friend as much as you are.” She revved up the motor and grinned. “I’m taking my bike with me. It’s going to be a long ride to that little town.”
“I’ll be ready.”
When he drove away, she realized that she was going to go. And she’d more than likely claim the other two bodies while there. However, she wasn’t paying for any attorney. Nor was she going to plead Howie’s case. Allie only wanted to be there in case he was found not guilty. Then she might have to kill him herself.
Before You Go…
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Kathi Barton, winner of the Pinnacle Book Achievement award as well as a best-selling author on Amazon and All Romance books, lives in Nashport, Ohio with her husband Paul. When not creating new worlds and romance, Kathi and her husband enjoy camping and going to auctions. She can also be seen at county fairs with her husband who is an artist and potter.
Her muse, a cross between Jimmy Stewart and Hugh Jackman, brings her stories to life for her readers in a way that has them coming back time and again for more. Her favorite genre is paranormal romance with a great deal of spice. You can visit Kathi online and drop her an email if you’d like. She loves hearing from her fans. [email protected].
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Bryant: Prince of Tigers – Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance Page 17
