“You think you might want to join us in our company? Won’t take much, really, to work you into the crew. You sure have the muscles for it. Do you happen to lift cars when no one is around?” Hawkins laughed with his dad as he continued to talk about the business. “We have about all of you working with us now. Dustin and I did it by ourselves for a long time. But with the extra hands, we can take on more projects like this one. Does my heart good to see this happening here.”
“It is a nice thing. Most of the men I worked with didn’t have a pot to piss in most of the time. They were sending the money home to someone. Mostly moms.” Dad nodded and asked him where his had gone. “Investments. Land. I had Larson turning it into something more for me. I did send some of my first check to Mom and you, if you remember.”
“Heck fire, yes, I remember. Durn near had myself a fit when that check came in. We sure did set you straight on that one, I think.” He said they had. Hawk remembered the call he’d gotten. His parents had been really pissed off when he should have been saving the money for a rainy day. “Jamie settling in with all this?”
“You mean the wealth? I’ve not told her. I’m not keeping it from her, but she never asked and I didn’t think to tell her. I’ll do that when I get home tonight.” There was a lot of things that he’d not told her yet, and his list was getting longer as the day wore on. “Women can sure turn you into thinking that you’re a special person, can’t they?”
“Yes, but your mom and I, we knew you was special all along. You were a good boy and turned into a better man.” His dad took out his blue handkerchief and blew his nose. “I’m sure liking you being a whole man again. I knew you was suffering a bit, but I couldn’t do anything about it. Jamie, she gave you back to us, and I’ve never been so happy in my whole life.”
“We’re going to have a baby.” His dad looked at him, his face in a comical expression. “She and I haven’t told anyone yet, we’re waiting to go to the doctor first. But—”
His dad pulled him to him for a big bear hug, and Hawkins held him as he sobbed out how proud he was of his boys. Hawkins wondered if there would ever be a time when him and his mom stopped calling them their boys, but he didn’t think so. But that was all right too.
“You gonna tell your mom?” Hawkins told Dad that Jamie was going to do it today, that she’d been invited to the tea party and thought that was a good time. “It sure will be. Your momma, she’s going to crow like she’s in a patch of corn and there ain’t no scarecrow around to make her go away.”
Hawkins laughed with his dad, and when he hugged him again, Hawkins hugged him back. It had been a long time since he’d welcomed any kind of hugs or words that meant they loved you. He was glad now that he and Jamie had decided to tell them this way.
They worked on the house for another four hours. Hawkins was going to pick him up some dinner on the way home, as Jamie wasn’t going to be home until later. The women had decided to have dinner when the tea was over, and Hawkins was glad that she was having such a good time.
“Wanna join us for some pizza?” Hawkins first instinct was to say no to Colin. But he was learning to be with his family, thanks mostly to Jamie. “The women won’t be home until late, and we thought it might be fun to have some manly time together. Jon is going to join us too.”
“I’d love to.”
It was getting easier to say yes. Not all the time, but that was all right too. He was a grown assed man, he’d been told, and his family missed him. Jamie sure had a way of making a man feel like he meant something. And she meant it, too, when she said that she loved him. He loved her as well.
When they were seated at the big table, he looked over the menu. Hawkins couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten in a restaurant that he didn’t have to worry about it blowing up, nor that he was going to be poisoned. When he ordered first, Hawkins order a large pizza for himself. When one of the others asked him if he was sharing, he told them to get their own.
And they did. They ordered ten large pizzas in varying flavors, and asked for a few beers. Hawkins declined the beer in favor of tea. He didn’t drink at all, and would like to keep it that way.
Since there were no leftovers, which really surprised Hawkins, they were set to go. But Dad started talking about the next job they had and what was going to be required of them to set the house up. They all looked at Hawkins when Dad explained that the house was for a couple, and that the woman, the vet, had lost an arm and her leg due to a landmine.
“I don’t know them. I don’t think so anyway. Why are you waiting on me to say something?” He started to get up and leave when Duston told him what they wanted. “I can see what I can find out. I mean, losing both would have been a horrific accident, but the service is very good about training someone on a new set of skills to walk and get around.”
“I know that she’ll need to have some of the rooms outfitted for her using a wheelchair.” Hawkins told his dad that she might have a prosthetic leg and arm. “I never would have thought of that. See, I knew having you come on would be good for us. You find out what you can about this couple, and we’ll work from there.”
He had a few contacts still in the VA hospital overseas. Most of the people there were just waiting to be sent home. A lot of them, like this woman, would be learning how to cope with life now, and with having their family around. It was more difficult, he knew, to acclimate yourself to family life than it would be to the Army. But most of the men and women didn’t have the support group that he had when he’d gotten home.
The house was going to be started on, the foundation poured and the bathroom readied, while he found out what he could. His list was getting longer by the minute. At this rate, he’d be working on this well after midnight. Laughing to himself, he figured that it was a fair trade off to be home all the time. And to be needed.
When he heard from Jamie about her tea party, he wanted to go home and be with her. But she told him that they were discussing some kind of event that his mother was throwing. An annual fundraiser for the library. Since it seemed that he’d be out of place, he went home with his dad to watch some television with the rest of them.
Instead of watching what was on the television, he thought about the work he had going on for the president. This was his last job, he’d told him, but Jarvis seemed to slide over him quitting right now.
“There is a great deal that we can accomplish with you. I don’t want to tell you that the world is depending on you, but it somewhat is. This one man, Jackson, can bring down my house of carefully laid cards in a single heartbeat. He has been in my offices, and I don’t know, in addition to the paperwork that he took, what else he might have found when he was here looking before we were able to figure it out.” Hawkins asked him what sort of things he had kept in there. “Passwords for one thing. And since they were still in there when I looked, I haven’t any idea if he’d made a copy of it and returned it to the safe.”
That was true, and something that was bothering Hawk. He and Lauren had yet to get together on the suitcase. She had looked through it but wanted his opinion on some of the things in it. There was also money, a great deal of it, and passports—seven in total. He wondered if it was a case filled with things Jackson would need to run. And where was he?
The tracker was still on the car, and it was currently still sitting in the front of Iris’s home. They’d done a quick search on it but had left it there in the event that he came back for it. Hawkins didn’t think that he would. Jackson might be a moron, but he wasn’t that stupid.
There were other things, too, that he had to work on. Like this thing with Jamie’s father. He’d had a search going for him for the past several days, but there was nothing that he could find. Hawkins trusted that Jon had the right information and that it was correct, but locating the man was becoming harder and harder.
“Are you paying attention?” He looked at his dad and noticed that everyone else had left them there. He asked if they’d gone home. “The
y have. You were deep in thinking. Anything I can help you with?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. There are several things that I can’t talk to you about, but I can tell you that Jamie’s biological father is looking for her, we think.” Dad asked if they thought he was looking or that they thought it was her father. “Both I guess. Jon came to me a few days ago with the information. He didn’t tell me where or even his name, but you know as well as I, if there is anyone looking, he’d know it.”
“Yes, he’s a smart one, my grandson. What do you know so far?” Hawkins told him that they only knew that he might be in Columbus, and that he only just started looking for her. “You think that he’s had a change of heart? Or something that you aren’t telling me?”
“My opinion or theory, however you want to think of this, is that I don’t think he knew about her. I have no idea why, but that’s what I’m thinking.” Dad nodded and didn’t say anything more. “I haven’t told her yet, along with a few other things. But this, about her father, is the only thing that I sort of feel guilty about. The rest, I haven’t thought of telling her until today.”
“Your money for one thing. I talked to Larson, and he said that you’ve done very well for yourself, and he doesn’t think that you’ll slow that down much. He didn’t tell me an amount, mind you, but he did say that you were far better off financially than the lot of us together.”
“I am.” He waited for his dad to ask, somehow knowing that he wouldn’t. “The government paid me very well when I was in Special Forces. And I didn’t buy anything with it other than my house. As I said, I’ve had Larson playing with my money, and he’s done well with it. I’m a billionaire several times over.”
~*~
Jamie was just going up the stairs to bed when she heard the car pull into the garage. She ran back down the few that she’d gone up and met him at the front door. He picked her up and swung her around until she was dizzy with it. Laughing, he set her down on the floor again.
“Did you have fun tonight? I’m betting that you were slightly overwhelmed with it all.” She laughed and told him that it was a bit much at times. “Mom said that you won a few things. I had no idea that there was anything going on with it other than tea.”
“Oh yes. They have this charity thing, I guess, that will buy books for the library. They have people from all over to sponsor it, and they give the donations away in a Chinese auction. I wasn’t sure that I should have spent the money, but it was for a good cause.” He told her that was one of the things they needed to talk about. “Not yet. I want to show you what we won. And ask you about one of the prizes. I won a lot of silly things, like a shirt with a movie gift card with it. Free popcorn at the grocery store when I’m in there, as well as the grand prize.”
She had him follow her into the living room and showed him the gifts. It really had been fun, and when they pulled her number out of the bag for the grand prize, she’d been as shocked as the rest of them at the table.
“Did you know that your mom has never won anything at this until tonight?” Hawk told her that he hadn’t been aware of that because he’d had no idea that this was going on. “Yes, Lauren said that as well. You weren’t home much, were you?”
“Not really. I mean, I’d come home for some rest and relaxation—they called it R&R—but I did neither of them while here. I mostly hid from everyone and bemoaned the fact that it was much too noisy for me.” She nodded, understanding completely after tonight. All the people stuffed into one large room had been too much for her too. “So, how did Mom do with the competition? I heard Dad say that it used to be funny, but now it was like they were at war.”
“You’d think that too if you saw these big women. I think Cora was most upset when your mom started pulling out pictures of all the grandkids. That really set her off. None of her daughters are married yet, so that was a lot of points in your mom’s favor today.” She sat on the couch with Hawkins and handed him the flyer for the grand prize. “I’d like to give this to your parents. If you don’t mind.”
“They’d love this. But are you sure you wouldn’t like to use it? We could go on a nice honeymoon if we wanted.” Jamie watched his face. “Honey, give it to them if you want. It was your gift that you won. I really think they’d love it.”
“I know that it was an expensive day out for me, but I did have a great deal of fun.” He asked her to wait there a moment, and left her to go into the hall. When he returned, he had a thick file envelope, as well as a small fireproof box. “What on earth is that for? You couldn’t get much in there but a few sheets of paper.”
He handed it to her with the key. “That box there holds all the deeds to the properties that we own. At the time that I purchased that for Larson to use, it fit everything in it nicely.” Jamie pulled out property deed after deed. She asked him if this was real. “Yes. I’ve been paid well over the years, and I had no one back then to send it to. The one time that I sent home money for my parents, I got a scolding call from them on saving my money. So, I did.”
“Hawkins, there must be thirty deeds here. Surely you don’t own them all?” He said that he didn’t. “I mean, it’s a good thing, but really out of my league, I think.”
“I don’t own them all. We do. I’m having Larson put your name on all the deeds so that you will own them with me. And anything in the future, you’ll be owning those as well.” She looked at him, knowing that the next question was going to make her nuts. But she asked him how much he was worth. “We are worth, Jamie. What’s mine is yours, and whatever you have it’s yours as well. Having you is more than enough. And not counting properties nor anything that Larson is working on now, we’ve enough money to live for a very long time without having to worry about money again. Last I had any figures from my brother, we were worth ten billion.”
“Ten million. You meant to say million, not billion. Right? Please tell me that was what you meant.” He just shook his head. “Ten billion dollars? Are you fucking serious?”
“As I said, that doesn’t include any of the property that we own.” Jamie got up to pace the room. This was just too much to handle right now. She’d been worried about what he’d say when she spent two hundred on tickets, and it wouldn’t even make a dent in what he had. “Are you all right?”
“I have no idea how I’m supposed to feel right now. I cannot even imagine what ten billion looks like.” He reminded her again about the property. “I remember. Trust me, I’m dealing with this one thing at a time, thanks. Is there anything else that I need to know?”
“Yes. We think your biological father is looking for you.” She sat down on the floor, and he hurried over to find out if she was all right. “I’ve known about it for a few days, and there never seemed to be a time when we weren’t either running out the door or in the middle of something else. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right. Just tell me, is it my father, are you sure? Or one of the other jackasses trying to find me? They could be pretending to be him to catch me off guard.” He said that was a possibility that they’ve thought of. “Who? You and Lauren?”
“So far as I know, Lauren hasn’t any idea that we’re looking into this. Another thing about having no good time to do it. Jon came to me and told me about it. He explained that he could feel someone searching for someone that had been an infant turned over to the orphanage where you had been.” She asked him how they thought it was her. “The dates are about right that you would have been dropped off, from what we can tell, and since someone is working on the building, the paperwork has been put in the library for people to look at. Did you know that the place had changed hands a couple of times over the years?”
“I sort of knew that. When I was there, it was called Lady of Trust or something like that.” He told her. “Okay, Our Lady of Trust. You have to remember, I was five when I was taken away. I remember the place, but I don’t think that I could take you through there and show you where things were.”
“I don’t know the na
me of the person, your supposed father, to go and talk to him about this. All I know for sure is that someone is looking.” She tried to wrap her mind around all this. Hawkins was a billionaire. She was too, she supposed, but holy shit, that was a great deal of money. Her father was out there someplace. And he was looking for her. “What are you thinking about?”
“Everything and nothing. I was going between the money and my father. When I was a little girl and trying my best to stay out of the notice of the men in the lab, I would dream about the two of them coming for me. You know, to rescue me from all that was being done to me. Then, not too long after I realized that I was a monster, as I thought of myself, I was glad that they’d not looked for me. What do you think they’d say if they were to see me how I am now?” He asked her what she meant. “You know, this person who has these freaky abilities to turn into a human flame with a single thought. I can read minds, and also those of the people that they might have touched. It’s a lot for me—I can’t imagine what it would be like for a human.”
“Yeah, when you put it like that, it would be a little scary. But they’ll also see what I do. A determined young woman who is smart and resourceful. A beautiful being that can be a debutante one minute and kick someone’s ass the next.” She pointed out that might not be a selling point to most people. “It is to me. I don’t worry about you getting hurt. In fact, I hope that no one pisses you off so that I won’t have to go and bail you out of jail.”
Sitting on the couch with him again, she put all the paperwork back where it had been. It still boggled her mind, the amount of money that Hawkins had. When she had it all put away, she laid down on his lap while he played with her hair.
“You going to sleep?” She told him that she was thinking. “Can I give you something else to think about?”
“Is it Jackson?” He said that it was. “I know that he’s still out there and will need to be captured, but right now, I don’t want to think about him or anything else. Oh, I told your mom. She hugged me about a dozen times today, but she didn’t tell anyone else. She said that I was important to her because I gave you back to her. I guess you were more whiney to her than you’d been to me.”
Hawkins_McCullough’s Jamboree_Erotic Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance Page 12
