“Money. A great deal of it too. My sister has enough to toss around like it’s nothing to her. Well, we want a cut of it. It’s the least that she could do after having us thrown from our family home.” Lucian pointed out that she’d paid for it, the taxes and repairs, and it had been her family home too. “No, you have that all wrong. She was never a part of our family. Not then anyway.”
“So, she’s only a part of your family when it’s convenient for you and Nathan. I’m afraid that I don’t see it that way. Both of you should have been tossed out the moment that my wife paid the back taxes and had your mother getting the best of care. Despite what she did to her for all those years. Demi did more for the three of you than I think you deserved.” She snorted at him. “You have a different opinion? Please, tell me, were you there when she was beaten with a whip? How about the time that you poured scalding water over her feet when she said that they were cold? Or how about—?”
“Yes, I was there. Christ, did she tell you every fucking thing? Not that it matters.
She should have given us money too when she was giving Mommy all those drugs and shit to help her. It was a total waste of money anyway. She did die, didn’t she? That money could have gone for better things. Like Nathan and I a better home. My hair and nails done on a regular basis instead of when I could sell something off. Christ, they say she’s the richest woman in the world. What would she miss if you give us a couple million of your half?”
“I own just as much as she does. Everything that she’s made or owns is now mine.”
Astrid stumbled back from him when he stood up. “Now, you’ll see that I’m being very polite right now in asking you to get the fuck out of here. The next time I say it, I’m going to chase you all the way down the driveway.”
Astrid did just what he’d hoped that she would. And when he stepped off the porch he watched her face as he asked her once more.
“I’m not leaving here without money, you fucking prick. You had nothing before she felt sorry for you and took you under her wing. What do you think she’s going to do when she’s sick of the trash you call a family?” He said nothing but did pull off his belt. “What do you think you’re going to do, fuck me?”
“Hell no.”
He let his bear take him. And when she screamed, he laughed to himself. This might be just what his bear needed to feel good about helping their mate. And he did just what he’d threatened to do, too. He chased her all the way down the long drive, even waiting for her to waddle her way up off the ground when she fell. He was still laughing as he made his way back to the house. He’d do that again if Nathan showed up. However, he’d take a bit of help, like a crane, to get up once he fell.
Lucian couldn’t wait to tell Demi. He hoped that she’d not be mad at him for doing it. Now that he thought on it, it was her sister after all.
When he got to the house, she was sitting on the chair he’d been in, laughing so hard that all he got from her was that she’d been in the house. And she’d apparently been watching. He asked her if she was angry with him.
“Christ no, I’m not mad. I wish I could have seen the whole thing. But I have to tell you, I was laughing so hard I might have had to have you help me up a couple of times.
Oh, Lucian. You have made my day with this.” They went into the house. “Now we wait for them both to come here. And they will. They are too stupid to think that this is the end of it.”
Lucian didn’t care. It was fun and funny to deal with her sister, and the fact that
Demi wasn’t mad made him feel better. The next time, Demi told him, she was going to follow them. Just to record it for their next family get together.
Life with this woman would never be the expected. He was happier every moment that she’d come into his life.
Chapter 9
Nathan couldn’t believe his sister. Not that he thought she was lying, but the fact that his McCray person had been a bear all along. That should be worth some money to them. He’d tell them to give it over or they’d tell the entire town. They might anyway, he’d told Astrid.
“I’m telling you right now, Nathan, that man tried to murder me. I could see him licking his chops every time that I…that I had to see if he was behind me.” He knew that she’d fallen a great deal. Her clothing was dirty, and her knees were all scratched up. Nathan wasn’t sure he’d look any different, but he would have wet himself for sure.
“The next time I go see them about money, I’m taking a fucking gun with me.”
“We don’t have one.” That had earned him a smack on the back. Astrid had been getting more and more violent towards him daily. He supposed it was the stress of everything going on, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “Oh, before I forget to tell you again, the manager came by just a little while ago. Apparently, Demi has been paying for our room, and he said she called and said she was done with it. Even the little fridge that we have, we have to pay for that too if we eat from it.”
In his stress about the money again, Nathan had not only cleared it out, but had begged for it to be filled up again so that Astrid didn’t know. But in his haste to make the thing look full, he’d gotten scared again and had nearly emptied it. Now his belly was sick.
“She’s been paying it all along and she can just go on paying for it. I’ll have to add that to my list for when I see her again. Damn it, Nathan, that man scared me half to death with his changing thing.” It was a good idea, but he didn’t think it was going to work. Demi, he noticed, was pretty stubborn nowadays. “We’ll both go out there tomorrow. I don’t know how we’ll pay for the taxi again, but we’ll figure something out. Maybe we can write a check to this place and have them give us the cash for it.”
“I tried that already, remember? They said that the bank is across the street and they’re not affiliated.” He’d had to ask Astrid what that meant. “I’m thinking that someone is telling people not to help us, Astrid. Just this morning after you left, I went down to the little shop. They told me that we weren’t allowed in their store anymore.
That without cash up front, they weren’t to do business with us. You thinking that was
Demi?”
“Yes. Who else could it be but her? She’s certainly gotten uppity, don’t you think?
Like she can not only tell us off but tell us what we’re to do. Did I tell you her husband threatened to call the police on me?” He said that she had told him, four times now.
“Well, I’ll tell you again and again if I feel like it. I’m her fucking sister. I can’t be arrested for being on her land, as he called it.”
Since Nathan wasn’t sure that was right either, he kept his mouth shut. There were times, like now, that it was smarter to just let Astrid rant a bit. Then when she’d had enough, you could talk to her. But not until then.
Astrid bitched and moaned for another hour. Nathan was starving now that his belly had time to rest. He wanted a couple of fat burgers and fries. Even a milk shake wouldn’t be too bad. The television had some kind of cooking channel on, and he wanted to try everything that had been made. Even the things that didn’t look like they would taste good.
By nine-thirty they’d tried all three pizza places to get a pie delivered to them.
Nobody was working with them on this. And when Astrid said she’d flash them her tits—her words, not his—the man had told her that he’d rather have a hot pie on his dick than to have to see that image burnt into his mind.
There wasn’t any reason that he could see that anyone would insult Astrid like that.
He’d not want to see them either, but he was her brother, and that thought sort of made him ill. So they were both sitting on the beds wondering what they were going to do now.
They had no money—not a single dime between them. The fridge was empty, thanks to him, and Astrid had knocked him around for five minutes because of it. She might have gone on longer, but she had some chest pains that that scared them both.
But after she settled
down, Astrid told him that she felt a lot better.
“What are we going to do now?” Astrid told him she was thinking. “Okay, I’ll sit here and think too. It might make my belly stop protesting.”
It didn’t. Nathan thought it was worse. He’d never been a real thinker, and all he could think about was food. It was no different now. So, getting up, he made his way to the little table next to the window. He might have sat down, but the first night there he’d busted the other chair all to pieces and needed three men help him up. Something was going to have to happen about his weight, he told himself.
He saw Demi and that man again, headed to the store across from the hotel. He almost hid back out of the way but remembered that she knew they were here. Going to the door just as Astrid went to the bathroom, he didn’t even tell her that he was going out. Closing the door softly behind him, he made his way to street level before he had to take a breather. He wasn’t able to ride the elevator because of the weight limit and his fear of people wanting to get on with him. It was a terror that he would crash to the bottom and be nothing more than a splat of fat on the floor. It could hold up to a couple of thousand pounds, sure, but he knew that it would make all kinds of moaning sounds and creaks before it even started. So, he took the stairs every time after that.
Going out of the building, he put his hand over his heart, trying to calm it down before talking to his sister. They were shopping. He didn’t have any idea what it was they were looking at; they seemed to have circled the store twice before he got to them.
Nathan was having a hard time breathing now and sat down on one of the recliners that was in the shop. Finally, he had to put his head between his legs—well, his head down, anyway—before he passed out. He saw the shoes when he opened his eyes.
“I just need a minute. I’ve had a hard day.” The man told him to look at him. “Just a minute. I need to catch my breath.”
Only he couldn’t. Not only couldn’t he catch his breath, but his chest was feeling like someone was squeezing the shit out of him. When he finally looked up at the man, he had to work hard at making out which one he was.
“You’re having a heart attack. Just stay with me, Nathan.” He wanted to nod, but he was feeling sick again. “Demi is calling for an ambulance for you. Just don’t pass out on me. Or fall. I don’t think they’ll be able to lift you on their own. My brothers are on their way.”
“They going to kill me?” He thought it was a reasonable question, but the man didn’t answer. “I’m hurting powerfully bad. You’re Demi’s husband.”
“Yes, Lucian McCray. You’re Nathan Morgan.” He said he was. “All right, Nathan,
I have to ask you a few questions. The hospital wants to know. When did you last eat?”
“A couple of hours ago. Candy and stuff from the fridge in the hotel room. We don’t have any real food in there. Are you sure someone is coming to help? I’m not sure how much longer I can stay up.” Lucian told him to hang on. “I’m trying. Talk to me please. Tell me about Demi.”
“She’s the most wonderful human being I’ve ever met. I love her with all my heart, and then some. And she is going to have my child.” Nathan felt his own heart hurt. Not from the attack on it, but that someone could love his sister that much. “Nathan, open your eyes.”
He’d not realized that he’d closed them. But he was getting weaker all the time.
And when he tried to lift his arm up, it wouldn’t budge. He asked the man standing in front of him about it, completely forgetting his name again.
“Lucian. And you just hang on, buddy. I can hear the ambulance now. Can you?”
He tried to speak, but his words sounded all garbled to him. “Nathan, stay with me.
Don’t you die on me, you hear me?”
“I don’t want to die. I’m fat. I was going to have one of those things put in my belly so that I’d get skinny again. I used to be.” Lucian asked him if he really wanted to get thinner. “I do. I really do. I’m tired of.... Lucian, I don’t think I’m going to make it.”
Nathan felt himself slipping when he was suddenly pulled up. He asked where he was when the man in white told him that he was taking him to the hospital. Nathan was sure that he’d died, and this was an angel.
“No. I’m just an EMT, sir. And we have all your information from your sister,
Demi. Now there is a good woman. Did you know that she’s helping us with a fundraiser to get another ambulance? Without her help with this one, we’d not be able to save you, I’m afraid. Now you stand a better chance.” He hoped what he was saying was right, because Nathan did not want to die. “I just need you to be still for me. Lucian and his brothers are going ahead of us to help us carry you in. Had they not been there to help, I’m not sure what we would have done.”
“He told me that he loved Demi.” The man said that Lucian was a very lucky man to have found his other half. “Yes, I think he is. Does she love him?”
“Oh yes. They’re going to be having a baby. Hey, that will make you an uncle.
What do you think of that?” He was starting to feel better—not great, but better—and told the man he thought he was going to be all right. “No, you’re having a heart attack,
Mr. Morgan. You’re only feeling better because we’ve been giving you something to help you along. Once you get to the hospital, they’ll do everything they can to save your life. You just listen to them and do what they tell you, and you’ll get to hold your new niece or nephew.”
Once the ambulance stopped or something like that happened, Nathan felt himself being lifted up. There were the four men that he’d seen on the courthouse steps, and they were lifting him into the hospital. After that they stood by but didn’t help the rest of the people running around the little cubical with him. It was sickening, really, to see so many blurs, so he let himself fall under the medication.
“Mr. Morgan?” He tried to open his eyes, but his body didn’t feel like it was ever going to work right again. And he couldn’t make his mouth work to say anything. “All right, Mr. Morgan, I’ll have your sister sign off on your paperwork. We’re going to put you under now, and then we’re going to take you to the operating room. We need to do some work on your heart to make it work again.”
“Not working?” It was the best that he could do, and the man seemed to understand. He told him that nothing in his heart was working right because he was so overweight. “Fat.”
“Yes, well, I was trying to be polite. You’re going to start to feel lightheaded. You just let the meds do what they’re for, and soon you’re going to be in recovery if things go all right.” Nathan tried to ask him if he thought they would, but the drugs hit his system like a large hunk of apple pie with mounds of whipped cream and ice cream.
Then he felt nothing else. Nathan was sure that he’d died.
~*~
Lucian sat with Demi while they waited on the police to bring in Astrid. They didn’t think that Nathan was going to make it. He was not only well over his weight guidelines, but he was in poor health too. He thought about the list of things that they’d found out about Nathan in the quick exam in the emergency room.
“I’m afraid that he’s left his diabetes unchecked for so long that he will need to be put on a strict diet or it will kill him. He has sores on his legs and buttocks that have been infected for some time.” The doctor went on to describe the hygiene of the man, and how his weight was keeping him from bathing properly. “Having this heart attack isn’t anything that unexpected. Mr. Morgan was lucky that he’d not had one well before now. We’re going to have to work on his heart, first and foremost. After that, we’ll talk about getting him on a proper diet and exercise program.”
Lucian stood up when they heard the wailing of Astrid. She was screaming about what Demi had done to her poor brother, and how she was going to sue her for everything. As soon as she got within touching distance, she drew back her fist to no doubt hit Demi. But his wife spoke first.
“You hit
me right now, Astrid, and even in the hospital they’ll never be fast enough to save you. I will kill you where you stand. Now sit down and shut the fuck up before I have to do it for you. And so you are aware, I am not in the mood to fuck around with you right this minute.”
Astrid hesitated, just for a moment, then sat down. Demi did as well, but he remained standing.
“What did you do to him? I’m sure whatever is going on, it’s all your fault.” Demi calmly told her what was going on and why Nathan might not make it. “You killed him, just like you did our mother. I hate you, Demi. You’re nothing but a fucking bitch, and a liar.”
Lucian started to slap Astrid himself when his father jerked the woman up from the seat she was perched on and slapped her hard enough to turn her head. When she looked at his dad, Astrid growled at him. Dad, being a bear, simply growled, much louder and longer, back at her.
“Now you will listen up, or so help me young lady, I will do things to you that even your worst nightmare won’t have covered. I’m not usually a violent man, but you bring that out in people.” Dad stretched his neck and then glared at Astrid. “Had my son and
Demi not been there with him, Nathan would have surely died. And when we got here with him, that nice doctor was told to get the best to come in here and take care that your brother gets the best care. They didn’t do a thing other than go shopping, where he came to them. You had better get all your facts in a row before you go accusing this family of wrong doings, or so help me, I’ll take you to that woodshed out back and you’ll never come out. Now, you sit there and shut that mouth of yours until someone asks you a question. We’ve had a stressing time, and for now, I’m willing to think that’s what has your knickers in a twist.”
When Astrid sat down, Demi stood up and hugged his dad. They were very close, and Lucian felt wonderful about their relationship. But when she asked him what the hell knickers were, the rest of them burst out laughing. It eased the tension a great deal.
Lucian: McCray Bruin Bear Shifter Romance Page 11
