I nodded. “Yes, the one that sold recently?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. Well, I was exercising one of the horses out that way earlier today, and a guy was sitting on a horse looking in our direction. He just stayed in one place; wasn’t riding anywhere. He seemed to be nosy, if you know what I mean.”
“I see,” I answered and thought a moment. “Did you feel as though he was up to something?”
“No, not really, but I don’t know. It’s just that Mom is boarding some pretty expensive animals, and it seems like a coincidence that he’s so interested in what’s going on over here. You think he’s a competitor?”
I shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he’s just interested in your mother’s operation. It’s the only one of its kind in this half of the country, you know.”
“Yeah, I guess. He just kind of creeped me out, is all. False alarm probably.”
I could tell he wasn’t ready to let it go that easily. “Why don’t you keep this between us and just sort of leave one eye in that direction?” I suggested, which seemed to appease his concern.
“I’ll do that, Dad. Well, better get that shower.” He popped up, and his body language suggested he was feeling some sense of relief now. I watched him go inside. He was a younger version of me except he had Auggie’s hair. His shoulders were broadening, and I had a fairly good idea he was attracting some attention at school from the girls. He was playing basketball on the school team, and basketball ruled in Kentucky. We’d be talking about college soon.
I followed Mark into the house, and the aroma of fried chicken caused my stomach to growl. I’d been too busy to get lunch and even if I had, Letty’s fried chicken was famous around these parts. Her mother worked for Harlan Sanders years earlier when he started his first restaurant down in Corbin. She knew the recipe and had passed it down to Letty, and consequently my grateful dinner plate.
I thought about our previous housekeeper for a moment, and a pang hit. Betsy passed on two years earlier from cancer. It had been rough. For the last year, she’d been in hospice, and there wasn’t much we could do to help her. She’d taken care of us the entire time we were married and had been a part of the family. I missed her.
Letty was different from Betsy. She was opinionated and not afraid to voice it. She’d raised a son who had gotten into trouble and was now a permanent resident at the reformatory on the other side of the county. Letty had come to Oldham County to find a job so she could be closer to him for visiting days. Someone had sent her over to our place, and she turned up one day at the door.
Auggie had invited her in, and I happened to be home that afternoon doing some paperwork. Letty was school simple but street smart. That made a nice contrast to our household and we’d hired her that same day. She immediately moved into a bedroom-sitting room combination off the kitchen and pretty much ruled that part of the house. I think Auggie was even a little afraid of her, but Letty’s presence made it possible for Auggie to spend more time down at the barns, so it was an agreeable truce between the two of them.
I washed up in the downstairs bath and had enough time to check my email before heading to the dining room. It wasn’t a particularly elegant room. That was Auggie’s desire, though. She wanted understated, comfortable living for the family and I didn’t care so I let her have carte blanche. My office was my territory, though, and she knew enough to stay out.
Everyone had wandered in when the swinging door from the kitchen burst open, and Letty steamed in with a tray filled with bowls and a platter of exactly what I’d hoped — fried chicken.
“Smells good, Letty,” I complimented her, but she just sniffed.
“When ain’t it?” she popped back at me in her salty style.
“I remember a couple of times, but I know better than to mention it,” I handed her back, and she cursed under her breath. “Letty, no one can beat your chicken,” I thought to add in case she was planning revenge.
“Nobody alive,” she confirmed, referring to the Colonel’s demise years earlier. She scuffled back to the kitchen and reappeared with pitchers of milk and sweet tea.
Auggie sat at the opposite end of the table and kept quiet. She was in one of her sadder moods and wasn’t up to taking on Letty’s snappy wit. I knew how she felt, and I knew why. What I didn’t know was what to do about it.
After dinner, including apple pie ala mode, the kids disappeared, and Auggie and I went into the home theatre room to put on something relaxing. We opted for a screening of Casablanca, and I mentally compared Auggie to Ingrid Bergman’s character. She was like the fictional woman in her defense of her husband. She would have shot Bogie if it’d meant getting what she wanted. I was glad to be married to Auggie. She would always be loyal to me. She might be furious with me, but she’d never compromise our relationship. We’d been through too much and learned very harsh lessons. While Bergman had a recessive grace, Auggie was bold and independent. Bergman’s character would have bored me to death.
Auggie was pensive as we went to bed and I was glad that Mark hadn’t mentioned the nosy neighbor. I knew who she was thinking about, and I wanted her to focus on positive things. Mark and Marga would be off to school before too long, and she’d have a lot of time on her hands.
“Auggie…” I began as she emerged from the bathroom in her pale blue night shirt and sat on the bed next to me. Her breasts were rounded beneath the fabric, and she could only be described as ripe.
“Yes?” she answered, stifling a yawn.
“Do you want more children?” I asked in a tentative voice.
My question took her by surprise. “More children? Why do you ask? Do you?” She was flustered, and I took the opportunity to graze her nipple with my fingertip. That always excited her.
“Wouldn’t matter,” I murmured, busily swirling my fingers over her. “Just thought I’d leave it on the table for you to think about.”
“I don’t think so, Worth. We could be grandparents before too long, you know,” she started and then went on, “in fact, we might be right now.”
I knew that was it. I knew she was thinking of Ford. I had no desire to have more children, but I figured it would be priming the pump if I got her thinking about the topic. I moved my lips down and lifted her sleep shirt. I dragged my tongue over her swollen nipples, and she went silent and a little limp in order to enjoy the sensation.
“That feel good?” I whispered.
She nodded and laid back upon the pillows. As my tongue lingered on her breast, my hand slid into the waistband of her panties. She was wet and swollen, and I knew she wanted me. “I love you, Auggie,” I whispered into her ear as two fingers entered her warm body. She shuddered. I knew her ears were sensitive and felt her response as her nipples hardened even more beneath my fingertips.
“Worth,” she breathed out and her eyes closed halfway as she fumbled for my cock. “I need you,” she whimpered.
“I know, baby, I know,” I said and pulled off her night shirt. My pants found their way to the floor, and I lowered myself between her legs, entering her in one sharp thrust. She wriggled and sighed. The yearning she knew so well was being fed with a fire hot burning in my groin.
Auggie’s body had ripened with motherhood. Her breasts were fuller, and her hips had softened from equestrienne bones to the contours of womanly hips. I lifted her bottom, and she answered by wrapping her legs around my waist. This was not the normal sweet lovemaking. This was a reclamation of something we’d lost along the way. I claimed her, over and over and she was submitting. Her nails raked down my chest and folded alongside my neck as she hoarsely repeated my name.
Feeling the rising in both of us, I sank myself within her more furiously than I’d done in a long time. She met every thrust with a raising of her hips. I heard the orgasm in her voice and let it wrap me in convulsions before I released my own. It was like that with us — it always had been. We were timed like an orchestra and perfectly in tune. I stayed inside her warmth and brushed her nipple with my
tongue. She convulsed again, and it gave me a helluva turn-on to know I still remembered her magic buttons.
I didn’t pull out, but rolled her with me to our sides, her legs still wrapped around my waist. I pulled her more tightly against me as I naturally softened and eventually left her. It was a small thing, but important between us. She never felt abandoned; she felt completed. I turned her over so I could spoon her, tucking the blankets around us so we were cocooned. I heard the golden words just before she dropped off to sleep.
“You’re all I need,” she sighed, and I nodded and kissed the top of her head, smelling the sunshine in her hair.
“You too,” I answered and leaned over to kiss her cheek.
CHAPTER FOUR
Hawk
It was a strange feeling to be back home. A home where I didn’t belong. No one recognized me and had apparently forgotten I ever existed. I knew I couldn’t cross swords with the law. It wouldn’t take much to uncover my forgeries, and it was even possible there was a judge out there somewhere waiting with warrants bearing my real name. I really had no idea what would happen, but there didn’t seem to be any good reason to find out. For the time being, I’d just content myself with living anonymously next to my family. Like the hawk, I would soar just out of reach and bide my time, watching for the perfect time to strike.
I’d sold my peda-cab company, and while I had enough to buy my farm and live for a while, I knew I needed to find something more to do. Working for someone else was out of the question. It wasn’t in my personality, and there was always that hovering risk of being discovered. I needed to find something that kept me based on the farm. Something lucrative and yet unconnected to the county.
You can’t live in Southern California long without getting caught up in the tech world, and that’s where I turned my attention. I’d accumulated a computer science and business degree and decided those would be the tools of my trade. I set about building a computer lab in my house. The house itself was more than fifty years old, although it was upgraded when I moved in. Even so, it wasn’t adequate for my needs, and I set about adding a new addition; except it was subterranean and attracted no attention.
Electrical was the first consideration. I brought in an electrician from Cincinnati to add a new box and install a backup generator in case of power failures. Internet access was permitted through a dedicated T1 line, and I knew that would suffice. Again, the idea was to not call attention to myself in any way. Most companies doing what I was preparing to do would use a co-hosting company and access their servers for the load. I needed more privacy than that.
All the lighting was artificial; no windows were installed. The floor was anti-static and raised so wiring could run the length of the room beneath panels that could be lifted at will. Workbench desks were installed at the appropriate height for me, and I ordered several of the best computer chairs on the market, one per system.
I set up two Macs, two UNIX and two Windows boxes, each a backup to the other. They were maxed out with memory and video cards. A bank of networked twenty terabyte drives were stacked in a static-proof cabinet. For the aesthetics, I installed a state of the art sound system embedded in the walls and a ninety-inch flat screen monitor on the wall the computers faced. The large screen also served to create ambient slideshows that brought a sense of the outdoor world into the room. It was a setup many times beyond that of the home computer user.
Once everything was running, I began coding. I developed a series of proprietary apps. These could be licensed to companies to allow their employees to access their intranets — all of which I hosted. Business professionals had become accustomed to being their own staff with the aid of their laptop or smart device. I made this possible. While there was nothing particularly innovative about my services, they were gateways into successful businesses and that information held immense value to certain parties. It was a world of corporate espionage — the Star Trek version of sending out secret shoppers or temp employees to your competition. My office was built like a high tech bunker.
I didn’t consider this as any particularly intellectual or egotistical challenge. It was simply a way to bring in a substantial income without questions or visibility. It worked perfectly for me.
When I got out, I frequented the southern end of Louisville where there was less risk of running into anyone who might know me. Although it would be extremely unlikely they’d recognize me due to the heavy scarring, sunglasses, and hair, it was a risk. Risks needed leveraging.
Actually, I was a bit more at home in that world. These were low-income people who never quite made it to the next paycheck and resorted to less savory ways of making up the difference. They weren’t the least superficial. In fact, they didn’t give a damn about anyone but themselves.
My family’s world of Derby barbecues and coming out parties may as well have been on the moon as far as they were concerned. The only connection they had to the world I’d come from was horses. This was the backside of Churchill Downs, land of small shotgun row houses. Ironically, in a world where people were able to shake hands from their bedroom windows, they kept to themselves and knew nothing about one another’s business. It was like cellmates who subliminally built a wall dividing their cell at an attempt at privacy. By comparison, my family’s world of thousand-acre estates knew what went on in the most intimate areas of one another’s lives.
I suppose every man needed a watering hole he could call his own. Mine was Murphy’s Bar. They all seem to be named after somebody. In this case, it was likely an Irish immigrant who had been drawn to horses and opened it in one of the abandoned shotgun houses. He’d never expected it to go beyond the neighborhood hangout, and it never did. I harbored a sort of admiration for people who had a level of contentment. They’d started a little business and were happier to keep it small. They weren’t entrepreneurial. They had nothing to prove. They simply wanted to work for themselves. The world was full of them and sometimes I wished I were one. Unfortunately, whether it was in my genes or my family’s expectation, I had been raised to never settle, but to vanquish the competition. As many successful men throughout history had pointed out at one time or another, you are what you believe. The LaVieres believed themselves above the rest. Like it or not, I was one of them.
Maybe that’s why Murphy’s held such an appeal. There I was anonymous. No one asked questions, and no one cared. Oh, they might rally behind a Cardinal’s basketball game, or certainly behind races during the season but never interfered with one another’s lives. It was simpler. You never felt less than, you never felt greater than. There was plenty of world out there to levy that sort of judgment without looking for it close to home.
Murphy’s façade was that of a normal house, except it was painted bluegrass green. The only other giveaways were the neon signs in the shaded windows. One read “Open” and the other read “Beer & Wine.” That pretty much said it all. What they didn’t advertise, however, was their small kitchen in the back. It turned out the best corned beef and cabbage during the winter months, and equally delicious barbecued ribs during spring and summer. No one advertised it. It wasn’t listed in any culinary magazines, and no television crew pounced and splashed it over their Saturday morning talk show. Again, it was a place for privacy, and anyone who went through the doors picked up on that instantly. They liked it that way.
The current “Murphy” went by that name just because it was simpler. Once I’d heard a frowsy-haired woman I supposed to be his wife, shout out “Orville” from the kitchen. When he didn’t answer, she filled the doorway with her glowering, pocked presence. His face had inflamed, but he’d gone in to see what she wanted. No one blamed the sonofabitch for going by “Murphy,” so we let it lie.
He was at the bar now, pouring me a beer from the tap. Years of practice had taught him how much to pour; just enough to let the foam make you think your glass was full but not so much as to slosh over the rim when he skated it down the bar to you. Murphy’s operated on a purely c
ash basis. There were no tabs, and you paid as soon as you were served. It kept things clean and impersonal.
The old nineteen-inch tube television mounted on the wall was always tuned to sports. If you didn’t like sports, you just didn’t look up at it. The only time Murphy touched it was to crank up the volume when a race was being run down the street at Churchill. Otherwise, the volume was off. The old sets didn’t have closed-captioning, so a good deal of the entertainment centered on what the hell was going on. There was a sort of ongoing betting pool as the guys wagered on whether a certain commercial was for feminine hygiene or keeping your dick hard when you got old. Mrs. Murphy was the ref.
The bar smelled like a glass of beer floating a dead cigarette. The glasses were scratched and not always too clean, but nobody cared. After all, what was more sterile than alcohol? A few of the regulars would engage in arguments from time to time. It usually had to do with politics or sports. There was little else in their world to separate them from one another but their opinion on both.
A guy who identified himself as Kenny struck up a tentative conversation with me one evening. He was a fighter, a wannabe Muhammad Ali. Kenny was from one of those unpronounceable countries in Africa. He’d worked his way over to the States on a freighter and never left. He earned enough for existence by cleaning the gym where he trained, and I suspected Mrs. Murphy gave him food in return for other services rendered. He was an athletic specimen, to be sure.
Kenny asked me if I was local, to which I automatically replied, “No.”
I didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask me to. Maybe he was looking for another way to pick up some bucks. I’ll never know because he didn’t bring it up again. He seemed to be uneducated, but I knew he could read. I watched him slide over a paper someone finished. He went directly to the sports section, and I saw then where his dreams lay. I hoped for his sake that Kenny was one of those people who was happy with settling for less.
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