“I really could use a cup of coffee before I head on up the mountain to check on those other three families,” he said with a nod of his head. “The reclusive types are kind of...I hate to say scary, but I have to protect and serve.”
“Sure thing, come on in. I need to close this door. We have a three-month-old inside and trying to keep this old place warm is the devil,” Zeke said, moving aside to let the Sheriff’s belly come in ahead of the man. Harley walked in, immediately noticing the yellow wall, the black and white picture frames.
“Honey, we have company,” Zeke called.
Tameka rounded the corner, holding Michelle in her arms. She’d added lipstick, blusher, and a bit of mascara to her face. The grin she gave the Sheriff caught him off guard. She provided the same smile to Harley as if she didn’t know who he was.
“Hey there, Sheriff. Hiya Mister. I have a fresh blueberry buckle that just came out of the oven and piping hot pot of coffee to go with it. Would you gentlemen like to taste a little bit of Heaven in your mouth?” she asked, looking at his rounded belly.
“That sounds right nice,” Huckston said, taking a seat at the table.
Harley swallowed hard. His eyes on the baby. His eyes on the woman. His eyes on Zeke, but wandering back to mother and child.
“Zeke, hold little Michelle while I grab some plates and get you gents served,” she said, handing him the baby.
“You keep staring at my wife like that Harley, I will have to go old school on you and take you out back for a personal conversation,” Zeke said.
“I’m sorry,” Harley said. “She reminds me of someone I once knew.”
“Tameka has been my wife for five years. I guess we all have dopplegangers,” Zeke offered.
His wife hummed as she doled out servings of the coffee cake along with a hearty cup of jet black coffee in crooked mugs. She offered them both sugar and cream, but Huckston declined, instead forking a big helping of the buckle into his actual pie hole. The beady eyes rolled up in his head. Harley, nibbled a bit on a slice, the saliva congealing in his mouth.
Eleven months.
Where had she been?
Jimmy Don?
This man.
Is she here by force?
The child? Is it this man’s or my brother’s?
“Lordy, that there is some kind of delicious,” The Sheriff said to Tameka.
“You make a girl blush, Sheriff, but to what do we owe the honor of this visit? I’m hoping you tell us the roads are open. Zeke said we were going to get out of the city for a minute, but at one point, I thought we were going to have to build an ark to get off this mountain,” she said to him, her eyes avoiding Harley. The dark pink aura surrounding him emitting hues of dishonesty and immaturity.
Zeke ate some of the buckle as well, surprised at how light and fluffy the cake was with the dense apples and blueberries. “This is amazing, Honey, thank you,” he said.
She kissed him in the front of the Sheriff and her former fiancé, collecting the child as she took a seat. Tameka gave more kisses to her daughter, as she cooed at the baby, telling her how much her mother loved her. Harley watched in confusion.
“Well, we just got word that Jimmy Don Macklemore is dead,” Sheriff Huckston blurted out, watching their faces. He checked her eyes for recognition of the name. She also showed no recognition of Harley. “Jimmy Don is or rather was Harley’s younger brother.”
“Is that one of those mountain kids you used to play with when your family came down here for the summers and hunting season?” she asked Zeke, crinkling her nose.
“I don’t really know the Macklemores. Harley here is the first one I’ve met in person,” he said truthfully. “I’ve never met, what was his name, Jimmy Joe?”
“Jimmy Don,” the Sheriff corrected.
Zeke’s hand reached for his wife. “Is there some kind of killer loose in these parts, Sheriff? I am armed and licensed to kill if need be. I will not let my family come to any harm,” he told the Sheriff, patting his side piece. His eyes drifted slowly to Harley, who was watching Tameka and the baby. Zeke squinted his eyes letting Harley understand that touching the weapon was a warning to him as well.
“No need for all of that. It happened last night up on the ridge,” the Sheriff said.
“We really haven’t left this house other than last two nights to have dinner with the Mann’s. My wife there was getting a bit of cabin fever, so we spent a couple of nights over there with our friends,” Zeke volunteered.
Another set of tires could be heard crunching the gravel drive as a black SUV pulled up, bringing Tameka to her feet. She grinned widely as she peered out the window. She looked at Zeke, shaking her head.
“I told you! I knew your mother wasn’t going to be able to stay away. They are already here. She is going to ruin our child,” Tameka said as the front door burst open with Mary coming through the opening in a faux, full length fur, her arms open wide, and her face searching the room for the object of her new obsession.
“Where is my granddaughter? You brought that baby down here in all of this cold wet air, Tameka Neary,” Mary said, passing out hugs, eyeing the Sheriff with disdain, but reaching for the baby at the same time. She only gave one look at the other gentleman, knowing it was a Macklemore.
“No, Mom, coat, gloves first. Warm yourself by the fire, get coffee and comfortable, then you can hold your grandchild,” Tameka said.
Josiah came through the door next with enough luggage for a week, a small toy box under one arm and a mouth full of attitude.
“Goddammit woman, what all did you bring down for our grandbaby? Zeke, get your ass up and help your old man get all this shit in the house,” Josiah said, dropping the luggage in the floor, looking about the old cabin. The new touches spruced up the old place, and he liked what the kids had done to the space. The outside needed some work, but all that would come in time.
Josiah’s eyes went to the Sheriff and the Macklemore in the chair. He knew for certain that if that potbellied moron had brought into the house the low down son of biscuit eater that had kidnapped Tameka, he was going to put a bullet in both of them. He asked in a loud voice which startled the baby, “What the fuck you want, Huckston?”
“That’s no way to talk to an officer of the law,” Huckston started to say.
“You don’t uphold no one’s laws but your own, you beer-bellied buffoon. You and those crooks you employ as your deputies have had enough of a reign on this mountain. Now that my son is moving up here permanently, me, my FBI buddies, my son’s ATF Buddies, and some of the spooks that work at the CIA with Gabe are going to be all over this mountain,” he said with a smile.
“As long as they don’t trespass on private property,” the Sheriff said, nearly choking.
“Private property or not, if I have cause to suspect illegal activity, I have every right to obtain a warrant and have a look,” he said to the Sheriff, who tried to stand. “Hold on there, Sheriff, Good Ole’ Boy. Which Macklemore is this?”
“I am Harley Macklemore. I run the laundry in town and the outreach program for the church. I simply came along with the Sheriff to do a needs assessment, you know, make sure everyone was safe, and able to get out if they needed to,” he said, with a smile. His eyes going back to Tameka, whose attention was on her Mother-in-Law with her daughter.
Huckson’s eyes went to Tameka, who was sitting next to Mary. They were entirely too chummy for his liking. It was all staged. He’d been married nearly 30 years and his wife and mother could barely stand to breathe the same air. All of this inconvenience was because of Tameka and that dumb ass Jimmy Don. That baby wasn’t three months old. It was barely three weeks, and somehow, they managed to kill Jimmy Don. It was probably that damned Nathaniel Mann, but these two would alibi him. He felt it in his bones. Harley was of no help to him. He sat in the chair like a love-sick fool watching the girl, trying to reconcile in that head of his if she was in fact the same one he was supposed to marry. He would get some a
nswers, quick, fast and in a hurry.
“I need to see some ID’s,” the Sheriff said.
Josiah pulled out his FBI badge, “Here’s mine. It reads F.B.I., which loosely translates to Fuck You Beer-Bellied Inbred. Zeke, you want to show him yours?”
Zeke pulled out his wallet, showing his Secret Service Badge but added no scathing retort. He said nothing as he rose to get the remaining bags from the car. The Sheriff’s eyes went to the baby and Tameka. She pointed at herself like who me? but shrugging, getting her purse, and dumping the contents on the table—her wallet, lipstick, a tampon and mascara—she walked away, telling him to have at it.
Sheriff Huckston opened the wallet to find a checkbook with checks starting at the numerical sequence of 3783, with three prior checks torn from the stack, in the name of Tameka Neary, with the same address on her driver’s license for Zeke’s home in Riggs Park. His fingers ran over the credit cards in the wallet, but he wasn’t impressed. How they managed to get it done was beyond him, but he was in no position to question. Jimmy Don’s death was a blessing. He just wanted to stop in and let Neary know he was on to them. Harley looked at the IDs as well.
The eyes on the driver’s license of Tameka Neary were full of life. Unlike the Aisha he planned marry. That woman had a depth to her, but no real spark in her eyes like this Tameka Neary. Maybe he was imagining things, but the yellow wall with the black framed pictures gave him pause. His Aisha had spoken frequently of doing the same in his home.
“I hear you finally put in your retirement papers, Sheriff,” Josiah said.
“How did you know that?” Huckston asked, looking up from the documents.
“You would be surprised at what I know, which is why Sheriff Mann and his boys never bothered me on this mountain. I am hoping you will instill in your successor that same kind of common sense,” Josiah said to the Sheriff, grabbing him by the arm, hefting him out of the seat. “Glad you stopped by.”
Josiah all but threw the man out the front door, as Zeke walked in with an armload of shopping bags, looking at his mother in disbelief. It didn’t matter what he said, the woman had a baby in her arms, and the common sense had left her the moment she found out about the child.
Harley too looked at the child. “She is an adorable little Cuddlebunny,” he said waiting for a reaction from Tameka.
“That is a cute pet name,” she responded, giving Harley a smile with only her lips. Looking him over now, she was happy she’d come out on the better end of deal, being married to Zeke instead of him.
“We’d love to see you at the church on Sundays,” Harley said.
“Not much of church people, me and Zeke. We have a special relationship with the man upstairs, and am humbled by His many blessings in our life. I think we are going to love raising our family here,” she told Harley.
“It was nice to meet you,” he said offering her a handshake. Tameka didn’t accept it, but gave him a nod of her head. His eyes were colder in person than on the phone when they had chatted live.
Zeke’s back was turned keeping an eye on his father who had pulled a detecting unit from his pocket to scour for listening devices in the cabin. Josiah went to his knees to check under the table where the Sheriff and Harley had been seated. Zeke, trying with little luck to get him off the floor, scolding him that it was unnecessary to scan.
While Mary’s sole attention was on the child, Harley moved closer to Tameka. In a lowered voice he whispered, “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. I searched for you. I knew he’d done something...I...”
She held up her hand, her eyes going to the yellow wall scanning the photos taken of her, Zeke, the baby and Sharon.
“Everything is as it should be,” she told him. Zeke’s attention was now on them as well. Harley felt his stare and didn’t want to get on the man’s bad side. He wrapped up his visit.
“Very good then,” Harley said. “Should you ever require any assistance, the doors of the church are always a safe haven for those of faith.”
“My faith is what got me here,” she said, giving him a full smile. Harley clutched at his chest. That was the smile he knew. The eyes were different, but she was his Aisha. Now, she was Zeke’s Tameka, and he had lost out twice.
“You all enjoy your day,” Harley said, reluctantly walking out the door. He could close this chapter of his story and would tell his grandkids one day about the one that got away. He tipped his hat, when he put it on his head. “Again. It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise,” she said, turning to her mother in law, who refused to let go of Michelle. She secured the door, bolting and securing each lock, not checking to see the Sheriff and Harley drive away. If they came back, she had a feeling her husband wouldn’t be so pleasant next time.
“Mary, stop hogging the baby and let her get some kisses from her Grandpa,” Josiah said, pushing Zeke out of the way.
Zeke looked at his wife, throwing up his hands in defeat. His parents were the best types of nuisance, and it was going to be difficult to get a moment alone from his family, which is why he wanted to come to Georgia in the first place. He had a family along with two mouths to feed. He felt more blessed than he ever had in his life.
“I have fresh coffee on and a blueberry buckle, still warm from the oven,” she told them. They didn’t care. The Neary’s had their first grandchild.
Tameka walked over to him, taking one of the bags out of his hand, kissing him on the cheek. “We could go take a nap, but where are they going to sleep?”
“That wall there is a Murphy Bed,” Zeke whispered in her ear.
“You’re telling me that I slept on that lumpy, dusty couch for nearly three weeks when there was another bed in the room?” she asked in shock.
“Yep. I was just hoping that it would have been enough to make you come and get in the bed with me,” he said, planting a small kiss on her temple.
Tameka reached for his shirt, gripping it tightly around his waist, wanting to be closer, praying to be better, needing to mend. She was brought to him and he needed her. Together, they would make a life.
“I’m so grateful for you, Zeke, for us, for this life, and even for your parents,” she said, looking at Josiah, who was making sucking fish faces at the baby.
“No, you are just happy you didn’t marry that Harley dude. What the hell were you thinking?”
“Well, him standing next to you is kind of a letdown. How lucky am I to get a handsome stud like you as a husband, that makes breakfast, paints, and doesn’t have a Vienna sausage?” She whispered.
Mary was crying as she held the child, content to finally become a Grandmother. Michelle also enjoyed the attention as her small fists waved in the air trying to communicate with the noises she could hear. Mary Neary didn’t care how the child came into their lives, but the one thing she did notice was her eldest son. The lost look he had when he was rolled out of the hospital was gone. This woman had given him purpose again, and it didn’t matter one spot of gravy on a white blouse to Mary how it came to pass. They had somehow found each other and would serve as beacons through the a bleak time. Zeke was smiling. He seemed at peace.
“Joe, give them the wedding present,” Mary said.
“Oh yeah,” he said, pulling an envelope out of his pocket. “This is to help get the house like you want it since you’re going to be living here permanently. Me and Mary would like our own room for when we come to visit you and the kids, so we wanted to add to your budget.”
Zeke opened the envelope to find a check with a great number of zeros, plus the deed to the property. He showed them both to Tameka. Her bottom lip quivered.
“You mean this is actually ours?” she asked him. “Wait...he said kids.”
“It’s made out to Zeke and Tameka Neary,” he said, holding her close. “We have a home for our daughter to grow up in.”
“No, we have a home to start a family,” she told him. “Loving you, Ezekiel Neary, is going to be one of the easiest things I hav
e ever had to do in my life.”
Never one to wear his emotions on his face, this time it cracked as he confessed. “Those first few days, I prayed over you. I wanted you to make it because I needed you and the baby,” he said.
“I know, Zeke, but do you think you will ever be able to love me? I know I’ve got a ways to go and all, and I’m damaged, but do you...,” she started.
Her words were silenced by his mouth. “Stop asking stupid questions,” he said, holding her close.
“Wait,” she told him, pulling away to the small kitchen. “I need to tell you something important. I’ve been wanting to tell you that ever since I lost my mother, I have been running from the Jimmy Dons of this world. Until I actually spent time with one, I managed to find myself and strength I never knew I had. I’m not hiding in my head anymore, Zeke. I’m ready to love.”
“Good, because I’m ready to teach you anything and everything you want to know about loving freely with a man you can trust,” he said.
His word was good enough for her. In the end, she had grown into the woman she was meant to be. The yellow wall represented an ideal she held as standard for hope of what her life could be, yet marrying Zeke Neary, would give her an opportunity to live a life which was meant to be. Cabrina and DeShondra would need to be called to let them know she was alright, but Zeke was way ahead of her as well as Josiah.
“Hey Zeke, have you talked to your brothers? I haven’t heard from them since they landed in Vegas this weekend to meet up with Tameka’s friends,” Josiah said to them both.
The look of surprise on Tameka’s face told him she didn’t know what her husband had been up to with Nate. This was something they were going to have to discuss in the future.
“Your brothers are going to meet up with my friends?” She asked, surprised.
“Yes, we wanted them to know you were still alive, but to not give anything away. That Sheriff still can’t be trusted and until everything plays out, we need to keep a low profile,” Zeke told her.
“Are your brothers anything like you?”
On a Rainy Night in Georgia Page 16
