“I’m okay with waiting to have children. Are you opposed to adopting a couple, or would you rather just have our own?” He put his head under the spray and didn’t hear her answer. Asking her again, he laughed when she told him.
“Children are children, I guess. I mean, I’m assuming some of the ones the two of us have might be human too. I’m all right with any amount, or even shifter breeds we can get. Just not right away. I’d also like to bring my dog here. I know he’ll have to get used to you and all, but he’s my buddy. Right now, he’s at my parents’ home.” Washing the clay off his arms, he told her that was great. “The next thing is, I don’t want to quit my job. I’m really good at it. I know you said you’d never tell me to quit, but I want to make sure that’s really what you mean.”
“It is. I want you happy. With you being happy, I’ve— When I got out here this morning, I had all these ideas of what I wanted to do. I’ve not been that excited about getting new things started in a long time. I mean, I’ll play around with things and get them to work for me. However, now I find myself planning out the next few pieces. Not just making them work out. Understand?”
“I do, actually. Your creative juices are flowing.” He smiled at her as he turned the water off and reached for a towel. “Damn, but you have an amazing body. But to get back to what I was talking about. I can read, write, and understand languages. Some dead languages as well. I’ve been working with Rogen on some things she has in the fire, but I don’t really like it. It’s boring to me. How do I tell her without being put before a firing squad?”
“That’s a really good question. I don’t have an answer, but that is a good question.” He pulled on his boxers and then his pants as he thought about his question. “Why are you bored with it? Is it that you’re too smart for what she has you translating, or is it something different? I’m not making fun of you. I’m just trying to understand.”
“Thank you. She’s been giving me all kinds of shit to translate for her. Different languages. Different dialects. Written as well as listening to them. I get the feeling she’s testing me on what I can do. And instead of getting pissed off at her, I’ve decided I might be better off telling her I don’t want to do it anymore rather than telling her I’m fucking sick of being tested, like I’d lie to her. That’s how it feels. She’s testing me to see if I lied to her.” She smiled at him as she helped him button up his shirt. “Do you ever wear just a T-shirt? Or is it more formal when we have dinner at your parents’ house? And shorts—I’ve never seen you in a pair of shorts either. Do you own any?”
“I do, as a matter of fact. But I don’t wear them out here. My legs would be worse than my face was before my shower.” He pulled her to him and kissed her again. “Someday, I’d like to paint you. In the nude. I have no idea why, but that thought has been popping into my head off and on today.”
“You can paint too?” He said he’d started out as a painter and moved on from there. “When you say painter, I’m assuming you don’t mean like a house painter.”
“No.” He laughed. “I have painted inside of homes, murals and the like. But I mostly do that on canvas. I also draw, which I guess is a given. I can also work with photography. That is where all my paintings come from. I take the pictures and then try and recreate them on canvas. But clay is what I enjoy most because it’s something I can get into. Not just the mud, but the way it works and the way it will swell up with the movement of my hands.”
“You’re wonderful. But we’d better get going.” He nodded, and neither of them moved. “I’m afraid if you want the truth. I’ve been really mean to your family. Shoving them away and telling your mother off. I’m sure she wants to murder me in my sleep.”
“She can’t. Murder you. As a tiger and you being my mate, she can’t hurt you at all. That is something that should alleviate your fears.” She glared at him. “What? I’m only trying to help you out.”
“It doesn’t.” She turned from him, and he pulled her back to him. “I’m seriously worried she’s going to put some kind of shit in my food that will make me regret living. That’s not killing, but she could be plotting my demise in other ways.”
“I think my mom and dad will forgive you for just about anything for loving me.” She didn’t say anything back to him other than they had to get going. “I do love you, Tru. I know you might not feel the same towards me, but I am so in love with you. I can’t even explain how much.”
“I don’t know how I feel about you just yet. I’m so glad you’re giving me time. And it doesn’t bother me, as I thought it would, that you tell me you’re in love with me. I’m doing my best right now to fit in. With myself. I don’t know if I’m going to explain this right or not, but I’ve been a loner for most of my adult life. I didn’t trust anyone. I still have trouble trusting people. But for some reason I just don’t understand, even when I’m being a bitch to them, I trust your family to keep me safe and sound.” Houston told her he did understand. “Good. I have some personal things I need to deal with too. My parents and my sister. She’s broke. I mean, I think she’ll be living in a box soon if something doesn’t break for her.”
“We can help her if you want.” Tru told him she wanted her sister to fail. That she really needed to fail at this. “All right. You’d know that better than I would. I have read the reports on your brother-in-law. He’s a real piece of shit, isn’t he?”
“You have no idea. We tried to warn her not to marry him. I mean, I even showed her pictures of him going into a hotel with a woman the night before they were married. Then again, after the honeymoon. But she wanted this, and Shasta gets what she wants. Damn the consequences too.” Houston and Tru moved out of his studio and to the garage where he parked his truck. He’d have to think about getting her something to drive soon. “When we were kids, my sister hated that I was so much smarter than her. Hell, she would purposely get my homework and change the answers so I would get a grade below an A. When I started college before her, that was it. She decided right then and there I wasn’t worth her time to love or understand. It wasn’t about her, so that was the end of anything we might have had between us.”
“Rogen told me you had a big part in Mike’s arrest when he was brought down.” The smile she gave him as he backed out of his garage was bright and full of mirth. “I see you might well have enjoyed that too.”
“Dad started the ball rolling after I gave him what I had given to my boss. Once he was on board with it, I just jumped in with both feet, you could say. Not only did Mike have a prostitution ring going on, but he was also peddling drugs and stealing from my dad’s company. It’s ruined now. I hated that, but there was nothing I could do after he signed the business over to him at Shasta’s insistence. She wanted him to have a good job.” Houston asked if he’d be put in prison. “Oh yes. I want him there. I hate that Shasta is going to go down the tubes as well, but she made her bed, and now it’s time for her to realize things don’t always fall into place the way she demands they do. She wanted a perfect life and didn’t care what had to be put to the wayside to get it. Which is sad, really. The boys, Sam and Jacob, have had to suffer the most. But it’s more than likely a good thing this is happening to them now. They were starting to be as bad as their mother.”
They pulled up in front of his parents’ house at six on the dot. Getting out of the truck, he saw his mother in the doorway waiting on them. Before he could wave at her, or even tell her he was glad to see her, Tru made her way to his mom, and he watched them both to make sure neither Tru nor his mother drew a gun on the other.
“I wanted to tell you how sorry I am.” Mom glanced in his direction, and Tru spoke again. “I don’t know if you’ll accept me into your family, but I’m still sorry for what I did and said to you. I want to be a part of this group you take care of. I don’t have much in the way of family anyway. I know I’m not the easiest person to get along with, not even when I consider it a good day.
”
“I’m sorry as well. I shouldn’t have butted my nose into what didn’t concern me.” Tru told her that was right. “You just don’t pull any punches, do you, young lady?”
“In my line of work, you don’t stay very healthy or upright if you don’t say what you need to when it needs to be said. I’m sure you know what I am.” Mom nodded at her. “You know what sort of people I deal with too, then. I’m sure Rogen told you everything.”
“Only what I asked of her. Which I’ve not asked much. I thought you’d tell us what we needed to know.” Tru told Mom she wasn’t sure who to trust anymore. “I understand that. But you do know we’d never harm a hair on your head. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to harm you. As you said, you aren’t the easiest person to get along with.”
They were both laughing when Mom brought Tru in for a hug. Houston hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until then. Letting it out in a long stream, he felt better for having seen this. Pulling out the things Dad had asked him to bring to him from his house, he came in after setting the ladder as well as the paint rollers on the porch. Mom hugged him as well.
“You’re all right, then?” Houston winked at his mom and smiled. “You boys. You’re going to be the death of me before I’m ready to push up daisies. I love you, Houston.”
“And I love you, Mother dear.” He moved into the house with her and could hear his dad and Tru talking in the living room. Houston joined them when Mom said she was going to go and get them all drinks. “There’s a game on? How come you didn’t tell me, Dad?”
“I didn’t know either. I hate this cable stuff with a passion, but I was flipping through and there it was. Could have knocked me over with a semi.” Houston watched Tru when she looked at his dad. “What?”
“I don’t know what sort of body armor you wear on a daily basis, but you do know a semi can and will knock you over if you stand in front of it? I mean, you do know that, don’t you?” Dad laughed. And hard too. When Tru looked at Houston, he sat down next to her and laughed himself. “Why do I feel like this is going to be something I have to get used to as much as you hanging around me all the time?”
“You love it when I hang around you. And yes, Dad is legendary for his sayings. He rarely gets them right, but he does keep you on your toes.” The game turned out to be a repeat, but he and Dad didn’t care. “Please tell me you enjoy football too. All we do in the cooler months is watch it, talk about it, and bitch about it.”
“I don’t get to see a lot of the games, but I do have season box seats to the Browns.” The television was forgotten when they both looked at Tru. “You wouldn’t want to go up and see them with me sometimes, would you? I mean, there’s more than enough room for the entire family to fit in the box. If you think they’d like to join us.”
The shouting could have been heard from Mars, he was sure. Dad and he were so flipping excited they took turns hugging Tru. When the others got there and were told, it was hard to get a word in edgewise as they asked her everything there was to know about the seats. If nothing else, Houston thought, she’d gotten on their good side with this. He was really excited and happy for her too.
~~~
Shasta hung up the phone and sat down on the chair. She didn’t want to be living with her parents. They didn’t seem to like it either, but the fact remained she had to do something. The bank had just told her she couldn’t get a loan, nor could she take any money out of their joint accounts because her husband was under investigation. He was, she had tried to tell the man before he hung up on her, not her.
Looking in the back yard while her boys swung on the swing Dad had put up when Sam was born, she thought about her last conversation with Mike at the jail. He certainly wasn’t all that helpful or mindful of her situation, either. No one cared about what she was going through right now.
“What the hell did you do, Mike?” He’d just laughed. “This isn’t the least bit funny. They took all of our money. The house has been locked from me, and I cannot use any of the credit cards. One woman even cut it up in front of me when I went to get my hair done. Then the school I thought was paid for for the year called and told me not to bother sending Sam to orientation, that he was no longer a student there. That since you’d neglected to pay the bills from there, it wasn’t worth their time to try and teach him. How the hell am I supposed to be able to show my face anywhere after this?”
“Yes, let’s not talk about the fact I’m in jail, Shasta. Nor the fact I’ve lost my income, my car, as well as a place to call home. Not that I liked it there much, but it was a place I could go to when I didn’t have shit to do elsewhere. Christ, I knew you were a selfish little shit, but this is beyond what I ever dreamed you’d be like.” Shasta told him he’d done this all on his own. “Sure. And you didn’t enjoy spending all that money for every little shiny thing that caught your attention? You needed to keep up with the neighbors, didn’t you?”
“Don’t you dare lay this in my lap. I wasn’t working. I got you that fucking job with my dad’s firm. You said it was about time. Now I’m wondering if your sole reason for wanting me to talk Dad into it was so you could lose it.” He said he’d not intended to lose it, but it had bought him time. “Time for what? What did you do to my family’s company, Mike? You lost it, that’s what you did. You lost it because of the shit you were doing all the time.”
When he hit the glass between them, she nearly fell back in her seat. He was yelled at by someone on his side of the glass, but Shasta couldn’t understand what was being said. When he turned back to her, she could see in his eyes that he was angry. Well, she’d been angry too.
“I’ll get it all back as soon as you get some money from your parents and bail me out of here. Shasta, you have to do this. I’m not a man that will do well in here. I need to be out and about. They’re making me wear this ugly cotton shit too.” He was speaking to her through clenched teeth. She wondered for a brief second if he could bite through the chains around his wrists. “I have a court hearing in the morning, and they’ll set my bail. Once they do that, you have your parents pay it, and I’ll be out to recoup all my business that was lost when someone turned me into the Feds. I’m betting all my money on your fucking sister. She forever had her nose up my shit.”
“She’s not even here, Mike. Tru left before you were arrested. I’ve been trying to call her to make sure she’s—”
He told her to shut up. Closing her mouth, she listened to the rest of what he was telling her.
“You get me that money, Shasta. I’m not kidding you right now. If I have to stay in here for one more night, I’m not going to be responsible for what happens to people. Are you listening to me?” She told him she was. “Good. I have some money stashed around the house too. I don’t care how you manage it, but I want you to get it, and you’ll be able to buy some tickets for the two of us to make it out of the country.”
“What about the boys?” He told her that her parents would love to keep them. “For how long? Not that it matters anyway, I guess. I can’t get into the house. Didn’t I just tell you they’ve locked me out? Christ, you don’t listen to me any better behind bars when you’re not able to get to your mistresses than you do when we’re at the house. They’ve arrested both of them too. Do you care about that?”
“I do. And you should be happy I’ve got them. They like the kind of sex you turn your nose up to.” She shivered when she remembered the few times she’d slept with Mike. “Yeah, I can see your fear written all over your face. I like that, Shasta. That means you’re going to do just what I want. Get me the fuck out of here, Shasta, or so help me, I’m going to be really pissed off at you.”
Now here she sat in her parents’ kitchen trying to figure out how not only to get into the house where she’d lived with Mike for the last ten years but how to talk to her dad about getting money.
The house, the one she’d spent all her labors
on in making it look perfect, was going to be sold off. The people they owed money to—the grocery store, their staff, as well as all the credit card companies—wanted their money as well. She didn’t know why they were going to pay the credit card companies back. The cards were useless anyway. They were so maxed out that every month she used them, she’d had to ask for an extension on paying even the minimum balance. Dad had pointed out they owed well over a hundred thousand dollars just on them. Then they were two months behind on the house payments and the grocery store that did their deliveries. Also, he told her the last two checks she’d written as payroll checks for the staff had bounced. Christ, she was so fucked right now. But not if she could get someone to lend her some money.
Her friends would have nothing to do with her. None of the girls she had lunch with weekly would even return her calls. The woman that did her hair had told her she’d never so much as trim her hair until she paid up. Then when Shasta had shown her that she still had her credit card to pay with, the woman cut it up. All these people were hounding her for money like she had it hidden away in her purse or something.
Then there was the house. Large locks were on all the doors and windows, and a couple of armed men were watching the house so she couldn’t go there to get some clothing. The boys were reduced to wearing things from Walmart, of all things. Not even the good stuff they had in the place. Mom had gone to get them things and told Shasta they’d wear it or not. She wasn’t spending the kind of money on clothing that Shasta normally did. Shasta said they looked like hobos, and Mom had told her to shut the fuck up.
Dad entered the kitchen just as she was ready to go out and make the kids quiet down. They were screaming and yelling at each other about some kind of king they were fighting. She told her dad she’d be back after she brought the kids into the house.
Houston: Robinson Destruction – Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance Page 4
