He smiled. “She said I could call her Aunt Millie or just Silly Millie.”
“Well,” Nick said, “I suggest you call her by the aunt one. But you can call Grady by his name just like me.”
“Oh no,” Carlos said. “He’s Uncle Grady.”
“He is?” Nick stared at the kid.
Carlos nodded. “He told me so himself. He said he never had a nef-foo. What is that?”
“I’ll try to explain later,” Nick said. “Was everything okay at the center?”
He frowned. “Nobody wanted to play with me. I had to sleep on a bed in a room with a bunch of kids who didn’t talk to me and called me names when I wasn’t looking.”
Nick rubbed his back. “I’m sorry, bud. Sometimes other guys can be mean and not understand people are different, and you have to learn how to make friends with people who don’t look like you.”
“Nobody looks like me.”
Nick nodded. “You think so, but lots of people look like you. They have golden skin and brown eyes and speak Spanish. They look just like little Carloses. There just aren’t many of them here.”
Carlos smiled for the first time. “You’re funny, Nick. I’m Carlos. I am my own person. Nobody ees like me. Mama told me so.” His smile faded. “The social worker told me I never see Mama or Papa again. Was she right about that?” A tear traced down is cheek.
Nick nodded, reaching over and brushing the tear away. “I’m afraid so, Carlos. But I didn’t see my dad again after I was just a little bit older than you, and you know what?”
Carlos shook his head.
Nick patted his shoulder. “It hurt, but I got so where I could remember the good times. It’ll be okay for you, too. You’ll see.”
“You’re not going anywhere, are you, Nick?” he asked.
Nick reached over and hugged him. “No, Carlos. I’m not going anywhere.”
****
Emily stood waiting at the door when Nick and Carlos got home. “Hi, honey,” she said. “I’m so happy to see you. How about a kiss?”
Carlos shook his head. “Boys don’t kiss ladies unless they’re in love with them.”
She stood up, frowning. “Who told you that?”
Carlos rubbed his head. “Papa did a long time ago.”
Emily shook her head. “Well, your Papa was wrong. I guess he didn’t want you going around and kissing a lot of ladies.”
“I guess so.” Carlos nodded. “Ees okay to kiss ladies even if you don’t love them?”
Emily smiled. “You don’t kiss any lady you don’t know, but those you do, you can kiss if you want to show them your care. You don’t have to love them, but I hope you love me a little.”
He stared at her. “I don’t love you, Emily. But I like you a lot.”
She felt a sad lethargy fill her, and she tried to shake it off. The truth was Aunt Millie had spent more time with him than she had. Probably Grady too. The fact she’d connected on a gut level when he ran back here, hurting because of Roscoe, didn’t count if he couldn’t feel her empathy.
“Carlos,” she said. “It’s not your fault. I haven’t shown you how I really feel about you. Maybe because my papa didn’t do that with me when I was small. But my papa told me he loved me just yesterday. So, now I’ll tell you I love you too. So much.”
Carlos smiled. “Thanks, Emily. I like you a lot. I will try to love you too.” He looked at Nick. “I liked him a lot when I first met him,” he told her. “But now I really love him.”
Nick bent next to Carlos. “You know what, bud, I liked Emily a lot when I first met her, and now I really love her a lot.”
The little boy stared at him. “Like me?”
Nick shook his head. “No, not like you. I love you like somebody who wants to make sure nothing ever happens to you, and even if I get mad at you, I won’t ever love you less.”
He smacked his head. “And you don’t love Emily like that?”
Nick laughed. “Not exactly. I mean, I love her for all those reasons. But I also love her like a man loves a woman he always wants to be with. That’s different than what I can feel for you.”
Carlos grinned and lifted his eyebrows. “Ah, now I understand. You want to lie in bed with her.”
“What do you know about…” Emily stepped forward.
Nick put his finger to his lips. “We like to sleep in the same bed. That’s right.”
After Carlos had gone to bed, Emily glanced up at Nick from were they set on the sofa. “Why didn’t you ask him how he knew about making love?”
He chuckled. “I heard a long time ago you should only tell kids what they ask and keep it in simple language, giving only the answer that will satisfy them. Unless he asks more, he’s not ready.”
Emily smiled. “You’d be a good father.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “Maybe one day I will be.”
“If we keep forgetting to use condoms, you will be soon.” She shoved him.
“Hey, hey,” he said. “We have a fifty percent success rate.”
“Then I only have a one in two chance of getting pregnant.”
He rubbed the side of her arm. “The way you’re acting, I think you want to be pregnant.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it’d be better to be married awhile, get to really know my mate and have a little freedom to do things first. But Carolina got pregnant before she got married and she seems to be loving it.”
He nodded. “Maybe so, but things might change after the baby comes. Plus raising a child is a huge responsibility. Besides, friends tell me it gets even harder once the kid hits puberty.”
Emily sighed. “I’m sure that’s true. When I turned thirteen, I was hard to control. Aunt Millie tells me now she never knew what child she was going to have that day, the sweet well-behaved niece or her evil Exorcist twin sister.”
“Good visual.” He dipped his head and nuzzled her neck. “I was the perfectly behaved child who turned into Michael Myers at age fourteen.”
“Wow, that’s pretty scary.”
“Yeah.” He sighed, his breath on her skin. “I wish I hadn’t done that now.”
“We all do.”
He gave her a small kiss behind her ear and straightened. “But I was acting like that, having a fight with my dad, the last time I saw him. We were in Aspen on a skiing trip. He left, upset, to go skiing down the mountain, especially at the end of the day when the snow is messed up from all the skiers. Died of a broken neck. They said he didn’t suffer.”
“I’m sorry.” Emily turned to him cupping his head in her two hands. “If I could take away all the hurt right now, in this instant I’d do it.”
He bent and kissed her, slow and sensual, swirling his tongue inside her mouth. As he broke the kiss, he stared into her eyes. “You’ve taken away a lot of it. And Carlos has helped me forgive myself for my mistakes.”
“Then we’re a perfect team.”
He nodded.
“Nick?”
“Hmm?”
“Since we’ve already made-up, can we still have make-up sex?”
He grinned broadly. “Absolutely.” He stood and held out his hand.
“Um, do you have any condoms with you?”
He winked. “A whole bunch in the nightstand drawer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Better slow down. You’re liable to have an accident at this speed. Or worse, we’ll get stopped, and the cops will figure out we have something in the trunk.” Caja stared over at Monstruo, the man’s black hair blowing in the breeze of the open window. The guy’s face was lit up in wild excitement as he took the corner on two wheels, exceeding a hundred miles an hour.
“What’s a matter, Caja? Don’t like to live in the fast lane?” Monstruo’s hulking frame draped over the steering wheel, appearing to let the car drive itself. “Cops around here wouldn’t catch on anyway, even if we had a flag out saying Coke Here. They’d stop us to see if they could buy a soda. Anyway, we have somebody on the inside
covering our asses.”
“I don’t think he’s there to cover for us.” He tried to keep his eyes off the disappearing landscape. “I think he’s there to snoop on townie activity.”
“Shit you don’t even know who he is.”
His partner laughed the way that always churned Caja’s blood. Half wild cat and half escaped lunatic. “And you do?”
Monstruo shrugged. “Nope. But I know he’d cover for me.”
“How?”
“’Cause the big boss likes me.” He plastered on a big smile and batted his eyelashes.
Caja turned and stared at the man. “How did you get into his chosen few?”
“I do special favors for him.”
The words shocked him. He’d no idea this cretan had any contact with the kingpin. “He’s not gay, is he?”
Monstruo swerved the car.
Caja grabbed the door panel, his knuckles white. He saw his partner give him a smug look. “Smart ass remark, Caja. You know I ain’t gay.”
“Okay, whatever. It’s just that I didn’t figure Kingpin one to play favorites. I thought he was more interested in drug profits, plain and simple. And seeing as two of the stashes we stored disappeared, I just thought he’d be more upset with you than anything. Both of us, really.”
“He knows we didn’t have anything to do with that,” he told him.
“How?” Caja asked.
“Because I told him where we were when the stashes were stolen.”
“So we’re each other’s alibi?”
He nodded.
“Good thinking.” Caja breathed a sigh of relief. “’Cause you’re right. Can’t be in two places at one time.”
Monstruo pulled onto a private paved road. Caja pointed. “There’s a no trespassing sign, you moron.”
Monstruo shrugged. “People’ll be asleep. No biggie.”
“Why are we here?” Caja said. “I’m not into peeping on someone or stealing stuff.”
“We’re not doing either. We’re storing our stash in a place nobody’ll look.”
“Where’s that?”
“You’ll see.” They passed a two story house painted gray with yellow shutters and a huge front porch. All the lights were off. Monstruo drove to the back of the house and down a dirt road to the right, close to a creek. He stopped. “Dug me a hole back here for the coke. Got it covered with twigs and shit, Caja style. But this don’t have no trap like yours did.”
“When did you have time to dig a hole?”
“Other night.” He stopped and they got out of the car and opened the trunk. Thirty kilos of cocaine lay inside. “This is the good stuff, man. Sell for $30,000 each kilo.” He looked at Caja and grinned. “Did you know we had near a mil in here this time?”
Caja shook his head. “No. Just figured it was a lot to make up for the lost load.” He stared back up the street at the house. “What if somebody finds it?”
“They ain’t. But if the police did, I expect Girlie Franklin would have some explaining to do.” He laughed.
“Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
Monstruo chucked him under the chin. “What’s the matter, little boy? Losing your nerve? Or are you hiding something from Daddy?”
****
Sam shifted his position on the dock at the lake and sighed.
Luke stared over at him. “For crying out loud, you have a day off. What’s wrong with you? You’ve been as much fun as a barrel of pit vipers.”
“Sorry, I’m getting that sense of unease I have when I know something’s about to go down the wrong way.”
Luke stared over at his brother and at the gloom of his expression, he felt something he
rarely did. An icy trickle of fear.
“You know we always prided ourselves of never being caught, never being fingerprinted,
and never having a record? At least one anybody could prove.”
“Yeah?” Luke pulled his line out of the water and turned to him. “So much for fishing, anyway. All I’ve been doing is feeding them. Oh, psychic brother, what’s your point?”
“Well, I just feel like we might end up with one this time.”
“Why do you say that?”
He reached down and got a beer from the cooler. “He seems too curious about why I’m really there.”
“He’s not that smart. You said so.”
“He’s surprising me lately. His questions have been pointed at best, no matter how much I try to throw him.”
“Blow it off. He doesn’t know shit. Probably feeling unsure of his sorry hide.”
“I don’t know. I’m beginning to think we need a miracle. Do you think you can pray us up one in the revival?”
Luke lifted his hands to the heavens. “Lord Almighty. We say hallelujah to your name. Praise God Almighty, maker of our income and early retirement. And please, God, let us rip off the town of Climax. For we are needy, dear Lord, of a miracle.”
“Do you ever worry about getting struck by lightening?”
He shook his head. “Just more flames. I’ve already gone to hell. Might as well enjoy the barbecue.”
****
Emily sat in her fourth guest bedroom watching Millie, the woman gasping in pain as she donned a dress. “Aunt Millie, you’ve only been out of the hospital a few days. This could wait until you’re better.”
“The Revival won’t.”
“Aunt Millie,” she said, following her aunt to the closet for shoes. “You don’t have to do this. We have enough women to make us a spectacle.”
“I’m going to have the leading role if that idiotic preacher even breathes out of his damned mouth the wrong way.”
She sank to a side chair as her aunt sat down and began to struggle into pantyhose.
“Guess the Titanium Azaleas ride again.” Emily leaned back in her chair.
Aunt Millie cackled. “Honey, we may be Plutonium Azaleas before the night is over.”
Minutes later, they met the other Climax women at Cindy’s for a pre-revival rally. Cindy even had air horns.
“I figured if we were going to meet, we might have a little fun,” Cindy said from her seat on the sofa. “After all, that Luke Lincoln’s gonna get our guts twisted in anger and fire spurtin’ out of our noses.”
“Sounds like a serious case of heartburn.” Maggie leaned back, a huge grin on her face.
“Sounds more like a dragon with twisted colon to me,” Carolina said, with a giggle.
Maggie stroked her arm. “That’s because you heard the baby’s heartbeat.”
“You did?” Emily asked. “How wonderful! Do you know what sex?”
Tears welled up in Carolina’s eyes. “It’s a boy. Like Andy and Daddy Blue. What could be more perfect?”
“Twins, I hope,” Maggie said. “I’m holding out to be a two-time nana in one shot.”
Carolina rolled her eyes at her mother. “Not much chance of another baby hiding behind the first on an ultrasound.”
Justine smiled. “I thought our daughter had twins, but all she had was a huge baby girl.”
“You can say all you want to say, Mama,” Carolina said. “But you aren’t the one who’d have to breastfeed and change diapers.”
“We all know how to change diapers.” Maggie smiled. “You have your own built-in force of babysitters.”
“Except for me.” Emily wriggled her nose. As everyone turned around, she sighed. “Okay, I can’t stand the smell of shit.”
Carolina burst into laughter. “When it’s your baby, you don’t smell a thing.”
“For the first two months,” Cindy said with a laugh. “Then, ‘oh my God, my baby doo-dooed’ turns into ‘oh, dear Lord can you make her stop?’” Cindy leaned over and pinched Carolina. “Or in your case, him.”
“Okay,” Millie said. “I’d love to talk about this all night. But, seeing as my back already burns, what is our game plan?”
“Y’all tell me if this is okay.” Cindy grinned. “Then we’ll go from there. You know he�
��s going to make more than one potshot at Dazzle and what it’s doing to the town. You know he’s also going to talk about escalating corruption since he last got on TV. After all, he probably had a hand in making sure it happened.”
“Now really,” Justine said, “Don’t you think that’s a bit over the top? I mean, the man is a preacher.”
Cindy might as well have shot bullets at Justine. “That man is no more a preacher than Son of Sam. Do you want me to remind you how many well-known evangelic preachers went to prison? Even when they had nationally syndicated programs?”
She held up her hand and nodded. “You’re right.”
“Get to the point,” Millie reminded her.
“Sure thing.” Cindy stood like she was teaching a class. “The way I see it, when he starts bad-mouthing Dazzle, unless he does it in a prayer, which in and of itself is a belly-low slithering snake of thing to do, we start a wave in the front row and chant, ‘Heaven Joe, you don’t know.’”
Maggie started laughing. “For crying out loud, Cindy. That’s almost as bad as the slogan you used to have for your baking service.”
Cindy glared, affronted. “What do you think is better, honey doll?”
Emily snickered. The two friends always addressed each other that way.
“How about confronting him?” Maggie asked. “Standing up and saying it to his face in the middle of the congregation?”
****
Standing on one side of Carolina and knowing Maggie could sound off anytime had Emily in an anxious state. She’d seen the woman go off like a rocket, even as far back as when they’d gone to a ballgame in New York. But considering she was a bit more stable now, and at this point, a lot more on even ground than either her Aunt Millie or Cindy, perhaps it was the best she could hope for.
The music started, and the choir walked up the center aisle singing What a Friend We Have in Jesus. She hoped so. Lincoln walked behind, solemnly, his head bent.
How pious is pious?
“Everyone can be seated,” he said at the front of the church.
Much later in the service, Emily sat there, believing more than one precious hour of her life had passed her by, her eyes glazed over as the choir sang, “Have Thine Own Way.”
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 143
