by Lena North
“You told him to give me a million?” she echoed.
“You weren’t going to talk to the press anyway, sweetheart, but he wouldn’t have understood, so yeah. A million. And resign.”
“Good,” she muttered.
Both men stared at her, waiting for the explosion.
“What?” she snapped. “I don’t want it, so you’ll split it. Rebuild the houses he burnt to the ground.”
“We have fantastic insurance on the duplex,” Joao shared. “Roark was rebuilding it anyway, so he’s actually kind of dancing down the streets right now.”
“Roark is dancing in the streets?”
“Figuratively,” Joao said, although he had seen his brother make a few happy moves which had looked more than a little ridiculous, something he wasn’t going to share with her.
“Okay. Guess you’ll have a nice house, Papi.”
“I’m not using any of that money for a house I’ll live in.”
“You’re not using that money?”
Dupree suddenly looked uncomfortable and turned toward the kitchen.
“Don’t need it,” he said. “You need it here, so –”
“No,” Joao said immediately.
The house on the bluff would need both time and buckets of money to fix up, but he wasn’t using anything from the Lievens on a home he lived in either.
“You don’t need it?” Charlie said.
“Girl, stop echoing everything we say,” Dupree muttered. “Makes you sound dumb.”
“Papi,” she snapped.
“Jesus, Charlie. I have enough money, okay?”
“You have enough –”
“Stop repeating my every word.”
They looked so much alike as they stood there, glaring at each other that Joao couldn’t hold back a chuckle. They turned to him, and he raised his hands, backing off from them before he got yelled at again.
“Dupree, explain what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I own the bar,” Dupree said, and when it looked like Charlie would snarl at him again, he sighed and leaned his shoulder on the wall. “Inherited the land. Built the bar myself, years ago and with a bit of help from Lippy and Ban. It costs me nothing except some goddamned taxes. It’s not fancy, and I fix this and that when I feel like it, which is rarely.”
Charlie suddenly seemed to understand.
“No mortgage, and barely no overhead,” she murmured.
“Exactly. Lippy and Ban get a pretty sweet Christmas bonus each year, and I pay them well for their time, but except for that, almost everything I put on top of my purchase prices is pure profit. Keep my prices low so people can afford to spend the night as often as they like, getting as happy as they like. Still…” he grinned crookedly at Charlie. “Sell a lot of booze, so it’s hugely profitable.”
Joao got it then. Dupree hadn’t created a big, fancy hotel which cost a whack to build and even more to maintain, employing lots of people, and having customers who expected top-notch service. The man everyone thought was a lazy bum with no aim, and a dinky bar wasn’t quite the naïve fool he made himself out to be.
“Really?” he still asked.
“Better margins than any of the fancy places,” Dupree said with a satisfied smile. “I’m also not a fancy man so I don’t know what to spend my money on which means I can easily build a new house.” His grin turned crooked, and then he added, “Or twenty.”
“Are you rich?” Charlie asked with a weak laugh.
“Kind of.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
They stared at each other for a while, and then Charlie walked over to sit by the kitchen table, leaning her forehead into her hands.
“I can’t do this,” she groaned quietly. “It’s too much. My life was boring beyond what you can imagine. I didn’t like it, but it was manageable because I knew what would happen, which was absolutely nothing at all. Now there are fathers and mermaids and cousins and dolphins and exes and swimming and drowning and bribes and to top it all, my papi is rich.”
She had to pull in air after that tirade and Joao looked at Dupree, not entirely sure what to do because she wasn’t exactly wrong.
“I just want one boring day,” Charlie whined and turned her head toward him. “Is it so much to ask for? Just one day when the most exciting thing that happens is when you scratch your butt and ask what we should watch on TV.”
Dupree barked out laughter and walked toward the door, calling out over his shoulder, “I’m leaving. Be careful when you scratch yourself on that ass, though, Joao.” He turned to close the door, and added with another happy chuckle, “It’s apparently made of steel.”
Chapter Twenty
Another pair of scissors
Joao
Charlie decided to use the money from Senator Lievens to set up a trust for the halfway house helping her when she left the group she grew up with. Dupree told her immediately he’d add the same amount to the trust.
“You don’t have to, it’s a lot of money, Papi,” she said, but there was a small hitch to her voice, and Joao felt her hand reach for his.
“Won’t make a dent in my account,” Dupree said, a little too casually. “I want to do it, for Hope, and for the girl she didn’t let me raise because of what that place taught her. Please let me.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Do I look like a man who says shit for no reason at all?” Dupree caught the look on Charlie’s face and added quickly, “Don’t answer that.”
Joao felt her midriff move in silent laughter and looked away to hide his own.
“Okay, Papi,” Charlie murmured. “Thank you. It’ll be good for them to get the money.”
They discussed how to set it up, and Joao suggested they’d contact people who had done similar things. He knew it had been done in other places on the mainland and told Charlie to call Snow who would know who to talk to.
When Dupree left, they stood outside the house and watched him go down the stairs toward his burnt down house. He was still limping a little and took medicine for the damage to his lungs, but he was mostly back to normal and spent most evenings sitting in a corner of the bar, bossing everyone around. Or trying to, but he also had to assure a surprising number of women that he was feeling fine, and since they wanted to pamper him, he was busy. And happy, it seemed.
“How big is his nest-egg, you think?” Charlie asked thoughtfully.
“Probably not small,” Joao answered. “If he feels generous again, ask him for a new master bath. That color in the morning, baby… pure nausea.”
“I’m not going to ask my father for a new bathroom.”
“I know, but a man can dream, can’t he?”
They grinned at each other as they walked back inside. The bathroom was ugly, but it worked, and they’d install a new one eventually.
“It’s a good thing you’re doing, Charlie. Setting that trust up will help a lot of people,” he murmured. She didn’t look happy suddenly, and he put a hand on her cheek. “What’s wrong, Sunshine?”
“Someone needs to walk into the church and tell them about the halfway house, so the ones who want to leave know there’s a way out. They’ll listen to me.”
“If you don’t want to go, then I know some people who can work with them. I’ll go with you if you want to go there yourself.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she whispered.
“I don’t understand,” he said because he didn’t.
“I don’t want you to come, and Dupree might get it into his head that he needs to be there for me too.”
He got it then.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of, Charlie.”
“I know. But it’s awful. Poor, dusty and narrow-minded. They’ll be afraid of you… and probably me too. I don’t want you to see it.”
He wanted to tell her he’d come with her regardless of what she said, or offer that she could s
tay at home, and he’d go. Since this wasn’t the kind of support she needed, he clamped down on his own feelings and tried to smile reassuringly.
“Okay. I’ll go with you to Prosper. I don’t want you going back there alone, though.”
“You’ll stay in Prosper?”
“You’re not going there alone,” he insisted.
“I heard you the first time, Joao,” she said softly. “I’ll have someone with me when I go there.”
“Okay.”
“What?”
“Okay,” he repeated.
She stared at him.
“You’ll hide somewhere in the bushes out there, aren’t you?”
“No,” he said sourly.
Jesus. Did she think he was crazy? Although to be honest, if he’d known there were bushes, the thought might have occurred to him.
He was still rattled about what had happened. Talking to both Dupree and Tina about it had helped, but to his surprise, it had been Roark who had gotten through to him. His charming, laidback brother had shown up on the terrace one night and stood next to him without a word. When the night shifted toward dawn, he put a hand on Joao’s shoulder.
“Brother, I get that it sucks to be the protector and still not able to protect the one thing that means the most to you, but you’re gonna have to let go of what happened.”
“What if I can’t?”
“He wins if you don’t. You’re standing here instead of sleeping with your girl, Joao, and life is so damn short. Don’t let him steal any more of it.”
Their eyes met as the words slowly sank in, and Joao felt his eyes burn.
“That swim I did…” He swallowed. “It was pretty awful.”
“I bet.”
Slowly, he started telling his brother about the icy ball in his belly, how he’d rushed through the water and how sure he’d been she’d drowned. Roark asked a few questions, but mostly, he listened, and as they talked, Joao started to let go of what happened.
It was still there at the back of his mind, though, so he wasn’t going to let Charlie go anywhere without protection, and certainly not to the godawful place she grew up in. Which meant he wouldn’t hide in some damned bushes, but he’d make a few calls to his friends on the mainland.
“I love you,” she said, and it was not what he’d expected at all. “If you really want to come, we’ll go to the halfway house together. You could wait there while a couple of them go with me to the church?”
“That sounds good.”
“Why are you agreeing with everything I say?” she asked suspiciously.
“Because I love you too. You think I’ll care, and that it’ll reflect badly on you that you grew up in a shitty place. You’re wrong about that in every possible way, sweetie. But you feel what you feel, so I’ll do what you tell me to do.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I really want to jump you right now.”
He blinked and wondered if he’d heard her correctly. Then she grinned.
Since he’d apparently not misunderstood, he repeated, “As I said, you feel what you feel so I’ll do what you tell me to do.”
She laughed and jumped into his arms. He put his hands under her behind and started walking up the stairs, knowing it was ridiculous but there was no denying it. The sun was shining just a little bit brighter again.
***
Joao stared at his brother and turned slowly to survey a group who was laughing openly at him. He was not a happy man, and they knew it, which was why they were grinning like fools.
“You wanna help me out here?” he asked Dupree.
“Joao, please,” Charlie cut in. “It’s not like they’re going to look at me. You all get naked when you’re going swimming. They’ll barely notice I’m here –”
Loud laughter echoed, and she swung around to look at their cousins with a hilariously astonished look on her face.
“I’m probably the only one who will do my best to avert my eyes,” Dupree snorted out.
“Hey!” Lippy said and pointed at himself with both hands.
“Oh, please,” Dupree said.
Joao sighed and was about to order everyone to close their eyes when he felt her hand on his arm.
“Please don’t,” she said. “If we make a big deal out of this, it will become one. They’ve all seen naked women. None of them look even remotely like you do so it’s not like I’m going to ogle them. We’ll all get used to it.”
He clenched his teeth and sighed again.
“Shit,” he muttered, but added in a louder voice, “Right. I’m not ordering anyone anything, but I ask you to please show some respect.”
“We’ll hide that we’re looking,” Roark chuckled, turned his back toward them and pulled off his tee.
Everyone undressed slowly, and Joao glared at their backs as he got out of his clothes. Then they walked into the ocean and changed. That’s when he realized that Charlie, of course, had removed the top of her bikini.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “I’ll find you some shells.”
Her laughter spread through the group, and he had to grin too because her nakedness actually didn’t feel like an issue. It wasn’t that she suddenly wasn’t hotter than the sun, and if she’d walked around topless on the beach, he would have had a mini-stroke, but in the water, it seemed natural.
“I can honestly say it’s the first time in my life I look at a woman’s naked breasts and don’t particularly feel like touching them.”
Joao whipped around and whacked his brother with his tail, but he did it laughing and mostly because it was expected. The others laughed, and he heard them echo Roark’s sentiments.
“Can we please stop discussing my daughter’s endowments?” Dupree asked after a while.
“Let’s go,” Joao said.
Charlie was still learning, so they kept a slower pace than usual. She swam with the dolphins almost every day, though, so she was getting better at handling her tail.
Joao had almost had a small heart attack when she asked him when he’d allow her to help, “Chasing bad guys and drug smuggling a-holes.” He’d replied that this would be about the same time as the sun fell down from the sky. She’d peered up at him through her lashes and murmured something about talking about it some other time, to which he’d nodded and told her that this other time would also be when the sun fell down from the sky. She’d just laughed breezily and murmured that she’d practice swimming for a while and then they’d see. He’d nodded but thought to himself that, no. This, they would certainly not do.
Today they weren’t out there for any other reason than the pleasure of gliding through the water, and when they got further out, a pod joined them and then another one. They’d had a week of thunderstorms and summer was coming to an end, but the winds were still warm. A couple of the cousins tried to teach Charlie how to jump, although he suspected it was mostly to laugh at her sorry attempts. Since she laughed too, he didn’t call them out on it.
When she turned after another belly-flop, their eyes met. She smiled, and everything inside him stilled. To hell with their family, he decided. He’d take her to a beach far away from everyone and –
“You lasted a lot longer than I thought you would.”
Joao turned slowly and met his brother’s laughing eyes.
Then he grinned widely, kicked off, and put an arm around Charlie’s ribcage as he passed her. She squealed, but it turned into laughter as he pulled her with him, and away from everyone else.
***
Charlie
Papi was back behind the bar and leaned over it to smile at a very pretty woman who smiled back at him looking absolutely mesmerized.
“He’s gonna score,” Tina muttered, mouth full of pizza.
“Tina!” I squealed out. “I don’t need to know.”
“You got eyes in your head, so you already knew.”
This was true, and I grinned
at her. Thea giggled next to us and raised her glass in a silent toast.
Life was good.
Papi’s new house had been completed in no time at all because he wanted simple and didn’t change his mind. Roark was halfway through his new house, and Joao had promised the builders that if the plans were changed one more time, he’d tie his brother to a tree on the other side of the island until they were done.
I had been back to the mainland. We’d gone through my things, which had been a quick exercise since I’d rented my small place furnished. I’d donated what I didn’t want and only brought two small suitcases back with me.
Going back to the church on the plains hadn’t been as difficult as I expected it to be. Joao had kept his promise and had to my surprise stayed with Nicky in Prosper.
I understood why when we were about to turn off the highway toward the church, and saw a black car waiting. Dupree got out and opened the passenger door without a word, and I walked over to share that I didn’t want him to go with me.
He promptly informed me that he did apparently not give an f-bomb, that man of mine was a p-word, and I needed to get my buttocks in the car. I heard a sound which sounded suspiciously like a chuckle from the bushes to the side and queried in a snap if Joao was crouching in there like a goddamned fool. An enormous man with no hair and more muscles than anyone I’ve ever seen stood up slowly and grinned at me. Then another breathtakingly beautiful man stood up on the other side, and my mouth dropped open. A white-haired girl yelled something that sounded like, “Yoo-hoo,” and waved from further down the road, I thought I saw someone else moving in the distance, and Dupree started chuckling.
I got into Dupree’s car with a huff, but since I wanted to get back to Joao and discuss his bossiness, I forgot my anxiety and marched confidently into the church with my father at my side. The congregation was silent and stone-faced while I told them I swam in the ocean every day, but they gasped when I pulled out a bottle of water and poured some of it over my face.
“You are allowed to believe what you want to believe in. You do no one harm out here so you can continue as you are. But if you follow the path leading west for an hour, you’ll come to a low black house. Those who want another life, please go to that house and they will help.” I looked around the room, and added softly, “There is another life out there. I promise there is, and it’s waiting for you.”
