“But the other one, you think that she’d do the job? And do it well?” He said that she was a real estate agent and also turned rentals. He asked her name. “Lavender—Laveen is what she goes by. Laveen Richardson. She’s a beauty, sir. And a nut crusher, her mom said. But she will do the job and do it very well.”
“Good. Ask her to.... You know what? Tell her to please come here and we’ll go over whatever she needs to know. Christ. This is going to save me so much time. I know that I should have done this before, but this is just something that I thought I’d want to do. Understand?”
“I do sir, I really do. But as you said, you can’t be running all over the place when it only needs to have—what is it that needs to be fixed this time?” He told him. “And they could not find someone there to change a light bulb on their own? I should like to fire that staff, sir. I think that would be the first thing I did.”
“They’re afraid of me.” Lloyd snorted. “Laugh if you want, but they’re afraid of me. I might have lost my temper a few weeks ago when I was there when I was going over receipts. They had replaced all the plumbing in the entire house. Now that doesn’t sound like a bad thing, but it had only been redone six months ago. By their relative. It had to be replaced this time because of his spotty workmanship.”
“You should have fired the lot of them.” He had an idea, a big one, but it must have shown on his face. “Oh no. Whatever you’re thinking, you just get it out of your head right now. What is it you’re thinking?”
“I was thinking that you should go to France with this lady and see what I’ve been dealing with. Then fire them all. You could have a staff there, maybe someone from here, in charge that would keep the place running and up to par. It’s a beautiful home. And like the rest of my homes, there is a staff quarters that has access to all sorts of perks.” He asked what sort of perks. “A wine cellar. A grape arbor that has its own winery. There is a pool that someone could use.”
“My daughter.” Tyler didn’t even know he had a daughter and told him that. “She’s been looking for work here. Ashleigh has a business management degree, speaks several languages, and before you ask me why she’s not working, downsizing. She was in upper management at the airport in town, and they let people go to save the company.”
“All right. See if she wants to do it. Why didn’t you help me before?” He grinned. “You wanted me to see if I could do it?”
“Oh, I knew you could do it, sir. It’s just that you had to figure out for yourself that you needed some help. And you do. Very much so.” He nodded and felt better already. “Ashleigh said that she’d take the job, and she’ll travel with Laveen to get things settled there. If you don’t mind, sir, I believe that Laveen’s mother will want to travel with her. A free vacation, I’m thinking.”
“Will that be trouble, you think?” Lloyd said that he didn’t anticipate anything like that. They argued, but they were loyal to each other. All three of them. “All right. See if Jazzie would like to travel with them too. Maybe she wants to get away.”
“Sir, that is asking for trouble. As I said, they are a good family, but the younger one, Jazzie, she hasn’t been one that they get along with well.” He nodded. “Perhaps she can go to another home that you have—one that is giving you trouble as well?”
“I’ll think on which one is giving me the most trouble.” Tyler felt like a new man. His homes were going to be taken care of. “If they need anything, like spending money, see that they have it in the form of credit cards, Lloyd. And they must keep the receipts for me.”
After Lloyd went to make the calls, Tyler sat down at his desk. This was what he should have been doing all along, getting others to do the job. Calling his attorney, Wendell Forthright, he told him what he’d done and asked what he needed to get them employed.
“I hate to say this, Tyler, but it’s about time.” Thanking him, he told him the names of the people that he was going to interview. “I know Laveen. She was a hell of a real estate agent. Sold me my house. Also, she can do just about everything you need her to do. The only problem I foresee is that she’s sort of a ball buster. What you need, but I’m fearful of the two of you clashing.”
“So long as I don’t have to do this, I can avoid her.” He wondered, briefly, if she was his mate, then dismissed it. If he avoided her at all costs, then he was going to be fine. “Call her and get her started. I’m sold on her doing the job. And set it up so that Ashleigh, Lloyd’s daughter, is going to go with her to run the place, and Laveen’s mom—her name is Gardenia, I think—will be going as well. Get them set up with money, making sure they have the receipts as well as whatever else they might need.”
When he hung up, Tyler felt great. He was going to go on a run when the phone rang. Telling Lloyd that he wasn’t in, he left the house for the first run that he’d had in ages where he wasn’t either pressed for time or something had pissed him off and he was running it off.
What are your plans for the day? He thought of his dad and having a big dinner with him. Asking him if he could work him into his schedule, Dad laughed.
I was thinking that too. But you’ve been so busy lately, that I ain’t seen hide nor hair of you.
I just hired some people to work for me. Dad said the same thing that Wendell had. Yeah, I think I was trying to do it all by myself because it was left to me by a good friend. Sort of like I didn’t want to mess it up.
He’d have known that about you too. But this here dinner, you thinking we can ask the others to come along too? The boys, I mean. I wanna get your momma a big gift, and I need some help with that. I ain’t never had the money to get her something pretty and expensive before, and I have my mind on a couple of things.
The dinner was planned, and he didn’t think that he was going to take his cell phone. By the time they were ordering, Tyler figured, then the women would be in the house and have things all set up. Just the way he wanted. And Wendell was going as well, to set up accounts for the house sitters, as well as for his new real estate agent. Things might not be perfect, but at least he’d have someone else to help out. He just hoped he hadn’t just hired his mate, that was all.
He didn’t mind having a mate, but he was unsettled. Not that he was a party guy. He’d never been that. But he liked things to be normal...whatever the fuck that meant. As he got dressed, Dad wanting them to wear suits for a change, he thought of his mom’s gift that he’d gotten for her.
Owen had given him six of the gems. Having them made into a bracelet for her, one for each of her sons, had been brilliant, he’d thought. Then Caleb decided that she needed something for the wives of them. That had become a bigger project, mostly because they weren’t all there yet.
Xander was working on one for grandchildren. It was going to have a smaller gem, his idea, that was carried in a small pair of booties, with the date and year of birth and the name of the child on them. He thought it was going to be too heavy with all that, but Xander was excited for it.
Dad had been a little harder to choose for. He wasn’t anyone that collected things. Like most fathers he knew, Dad didn’t wear ties, and he didn’t own any kind of pipes or stuff like that. Nor did he drink coffee or even hot tea. If he didn’t need it, Dad didn’t have it.
Buying him the big television had been a blast for them. The sixty-five-inch sucker was going to be epic when they watched games at home, and he thought that they might be spending more time there too. He looked over at himself when he’d fucked with his tie too much.
“A mate would have had this done by now.” He wasn’t sure why that thought popped into his head, but he smiled at himself. “You’re an idiot if you only want a wife so that she can fix your tie for you.”
Not in the habit of talking to himself, he left his room and headed downstairs. The dinner was going to be fun, and he wasn’t going to worry about houses nor tenants. Not tonight.
Their favorite restaurant wasn’t one that someone would think of as high class. The food was great, ste
aks cooked outside on a grill year-round. There was the best bread, too, to go with every meal, as well as corn bread if you got soup, and hard crackers for the salad. Tyler loved this place.
“I helped them out in this here place a couple of weeks ago.” He asked his dad, the two of them being the first to arrive, what had happened. “Nothing bad. They needed a bigger grill and the salad thingy, not sure what they called it, pooped out. I guess they lost some food in it, and the insurance wouldn’t cover that and a new machine.”
“They need a new insurance company.” He said that he’d told them the same thing. “And what do you get in return for your investment? I mean, you did go to Wendell, right?”
“I did. But he wanted some kind of contract and all that. He changed his mind sure enough when I told him that I’d known old Banger for a long time and we had us an understanding.” They did too. Tyler remembered it as well. “Tyler, what do you think about just putting together some of our money and helping out? I wanted to do that before, but we sort of got ourselves side tracked on things.”
“I’ve been helping too, though not investing. I don’t need a return.” He said that he didn’t either. “Well, what I’ve done is put out an application and ask people how much they need, what they need it for, and how they plan to pay it back. Not to me, but to the fund. That way, there is always money in the pot. And also, they have to hire one person who needs a job. Hopefully that’s working out—I never heard.”
“You know, I sure do like that. How is that going?” He told him that he’d helped nine people so far. “I’m betting it was Mrs. Quarter, ain’t it?” He nodded.
“She only needed a new lawn mower. And when she got it, she hired a boy whose parents are struggling to come by and mow her yard for her. And the fund pays that too. It doesn’t for everyone, but Mrs. Quarter, she doesn’t have a lot anyway.”
They talked about other shops that were having a hard time. People that needed a new roof, as well as some other things. The Sheppards needed a new furnace that Tyler was helping with. When the rest of them were there and seated, the talk continued about the town.
“I think that we should go out and stretch our muscles and help that way too.” Dominic asked what he meant. “Well, it won’t hurt us none to go out and put a few nails to the wood, now would it? We can mow grass and trim with the best of them. I was thinking of coming up with a yard crew anyway, to take care of the landscaping stuff around the plants I have now. Mr. Cartwright, he kept them looking good, remember?”
“Yes, I do. Even though we had no idea that he owned them, he sure did have nice businesses.” Tyler thought about the homes that he had and the one that he lived in now. “I don’t think he ever had anyone doing the work on his house until we started helping him. I mean, he could have, I guess, but he held off for us. I miss that old man every day.”
“Me too.” Dad brought out his hankie and wiped at his nose. “I’ve been thinking of getting your momma a pretty weddin’ band and a diamond. Then having us get ourselves hitched all over again. We was married on Christmas Eve, you know.”
They did. And they all loved the idea. To see his parents all gussied up, as he called it, would be great. And they started planning things to go with it. They were going to take a long cruise in the new year, and the boys were going to pay for it. Tyler was excited to see Mom’s face when she got their gifts to her and dad.
Chapter 11
Clare wasn’t sure what she was doing here. Her parents had asked to see her and she had stupidly said yes. And the attorney said that he’d make it so that she could see them both at the same time, rather than having to be there twice as long. Besides, Clare had so much work lined up for the spring and after that—she was making her own cash now.
“Mrs. Winchester? They’re ready to see you now. They told you the rules, didn’t they, when you got here?” She nodded and repeated them back to him. “Good job. And I’m glad that you didn’t bring them any treats. They’d just lose them again. They’ve not been model inmates.”
“They were never model parents either. Thank you.” He nodded, then hesitated a moment, and she was afraid of what he might be going to tell her. “They don’t want to see me now?”
“Oh, yes ma’am, they do. But they have it in their head that you and your brother owe them something. And that you should be getting them out somehow. They know that you’re married to a Winchester, and they’re a big name around here. Not just because they got money now, but because—well, they’re the Winchesters.” She’d heard that before, that the Winchesters hadn’t changed much, other than their addresses, when it came to helping out their town. “You don’t let them bully you. That baby you’re carrying, it’s their grandchild, and you show her how it’s done when it comes to them.”
“I will. Thank you.” The cookies that she’d brought were no longer something she wanted to give them. “Here, you take these and pass them around. I brought them as sort of a peace offering, but you’re right, I didn’t put them here.”
Her mom looked like someone had beaten her recently. Dad didn’t look all that much better. Being non-model inmates was getting them into trouble. But it wasn’t her concern, she was going to keep telling herself. She was glad now that Conrad hadn’t come with her.
Not that he wanted to. He told her that he had a job now and he didn’t want to miss work. And the pay was giving him such a boost too. Conrad had a home of his own, with a live-in person. A new bicycle, as well as a studio that he used nearly every day. Plus a new camera that he was having fun taking pictures with. Her brother had grown up a great deal lately.
Sitting down, she asked them what they wanted.
“What a way to speak to us. I’m sure you think you’re being cute, talking to me like that. But I am your dad, Clare, and I won’t stand for it. Now, what are you doing to get us out of here? We’ve more than paid our debt to society.” Her dad reached for Mom’s hand when he finished, but was told no touching. “I hate that rule. I miss you, Ava.”
“And I miss you too. They won’t let me have a doctor come in here either. Just look at my face, Con. How am I supposed to go out in public looking like this?” He told her that she needed some more treatments. “Can I get them when I get out? I’ve not spent any time with my body in so long, I think I’m falling apart.”
“And how do you suppose you did that?” They both looked at her as if they’d forgotten that she was still there. “You aren’t getting out of here. Not any time soon, anyway. If you live long enough, you’ll be about ninety-five or so when you’re released.”
“No, that won’t work for us. We’ve plans, you see. That brother of yours, he needs to come here so that people can see that we have a retarded son so we can get out of here. Who is taking care of him, anyway? Are they getting paid? I could use that money.” She said that he was doing just fine. “Yes, so you say. But he’s a retard, Clare, not some normal person.”
“He’s not a retard, you bitch.” Letting out a long breath, she stared at her mother again. “He’s not a retard, Mother, he’s normal. Conrad has his own home, a credit card. He even has a job that he loves.”
“What the fudge does he have a job doing? Separating cans? Does he do sheets? Those are retard jobs.” She asked her dad as politely as she could not to call him that. “But he is, Clare. Everyone knows that but you. It matters little. As his parents, I want you to have his money transferred to us. We have an account here that we’re going to have to pay off before we leave here.”
“Why do you think you’re ever going to get out of here? Not to mention seeing Conrad or me. You’re not, in case you’re wondering. I have a husband now, a baby coming too. A little—” She looked at their faces. “You’re not happy about me having a baby?”
“Gracious no. Oh my God, Clare, how could you do that to us? We don’t want to be grandparents until we’re old. Probably not even then. A grandchild? That kind of thing will make us sound old. And we’re not. Get rid of it. I demand that
you do.” Clare stared at her mom and then at her dad as he agreed, nodding vigorously about her aborting her child. “Well? What is it you need now? We want you to do those things and then get us out of here. We know you have money now. And so does Conrad, you told me. That should be plenty enough to have my face fixed, don’t you think?”
“I’m a billionaire.” She took great satisfaction in saying that to them. “My husband inherited a great deal of money recently, and we’ve been investing well and getting a good return on it. All my brothers-in-law are rich too.”
“Well, that makes things much easier. We’ll need you to— Where are you going?” Home, she told him. “Home? But we’re not finished here, Clare. Sit down and listen to what we need for you to do. It’s the least you can do for us.”
“No.” She did sit down, and saw the satisfied look on her dad’s face. “I’m not going to do anything for you. Think of it as payback if you want. But I’m done with the two of you. You’ve plotted and planned to have myself and Conard killed. You’ve also tried to blow up a lot of people in the place where he was—”
“They were all retards too, Clare.” She looked at her mom. “Everyone but you knows that they don’t have real feelings. They’re just stupid people that have to be taken care of all the time. Haven’t you wanted to just take out a gun and blow his head off, just to get him to go away?”
“No, I’ve never once had that feeling about him. You? Then yes, all the time, but not my brother.” Her mom looked shocked. “What bothers you about him? Because he’s different? He is, thankfully, nothing like the two of you. Is it because he takes a little longer to learn something? Good for him. He knows a great deal more than the two of you do.”
“How the heck do you figure that?” Dad looked at Mom, then at her. “Clare, I hate to say this to you, but what if that baby of yours is like him? Surely you can’t think to keep it. Not with all that money you have. Speaking of which, we’re going to have to revise our list that we need. I mean, now that you have billions, you can part with enough to keep us in good shape. I was thinking about ten grand a month, and you make the all the payments on the cars as well as a lovely home for us. But we’re going to need a— Why is it that you keep bobbing up and down like that? Sit down, Clare. I’m not nearly finished with you.”
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