Chapter 11-Endearment
J ared Bane paced the floor. He had been told to wait here in a small outer building, and he was waiting, but he didn't know for what. He'd arrived over three hours ago. Food was provided in the small workshop building in front of the home of the man they called the Archangel. All Jared needed and wanted was a fresh start. The work he did had soured his stomach, and he wanted to take it easy for the rest of his days, maybe get a small plot of land, grow some veggies, plant a fruit tree to make preserves in the Fall — nothing major.
A voice came through a speaker, making him jump. “There is an opening in the gate, walk through it. Stay on the path to the front door. Wait there until I scan and buzz you in.”
He knew the voice well. Speaking to the voice also meant making a few choices that may or may not benefit him. Owing the voice meant doing a thing he wasn't going to like. The last ten years had proven his assessment to be a truth.
“Roger that,” he said, following the instructions. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he exited the small workshop where it looked as if classes or a book club were held by a woman who did crafts. “Maybe it's his wife's business.”
Jared followed the path to the home and stood on the front porch. A white light scanned him, then the door buzzed. He fisted and opened his hands before turning the knob to enter the home, which was filled with the scent of baking and another smell that reminded him of the rub his mother used when her knees were aching.
A woman, fair in skin with jet black curly hair appeared. She offered him a smile. “Hello, Mr. Bane; please follow me to the kitchen where he will meet with you. Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?”
“Water would be nice,” he said. “Thank you.”
He took a seat in the kitchen, looking at all the matchy-matchy items from cups to mugs and plates. The kitchen looked as if Martha Stewart had a yard sale and what didn't sell was given to this woman. It was then that he noticed a painting on the wall. An expensive painting. His eyes went to the furniture, noting the styles. “She's a collector of expensive shit.”
He knew her type. If it was numbered and there were only X amounts created, she had to have one. The items on the kitchen shelves which all matched were more than likely made by a blind monk who lived on the side of a north facing hill and included the wings of mites in their gestation stage or some other abstract bullshit. Suddenly, he began to question everything about his life which had brought him to this point.
A door opened and out stepped the man he'd come to see. Gabriel Neary hadn't changed much over the years. A grey hair here or there didn't alter his appearance, and the man looked as if he hadn't aged. In his left hand, he held a mug. On the right was a teddy bear, which he handed to the woman. She provided a kiss to his cheek and disappeared into the back of the home.
“Wife?”
“Yes,” Gabriel answered.
“You're a father now,” Jared said.
“Yes, I am,” he replied, coming toward the man who rose to greet him. Gabriel opened his arms, accepting the embrace the man was reluctant to give. As was his way, he provided a kiss to Jared’s temple.
“Still kissing people, I see,” Jared said.
“Still trying to save the world, I see,” Gabriel replied.
“You do it your way behind a computer, but I am the boots on the ground. It is up to me to make the moves you need for a favorable outcome, happen in real time,” Jared said. “Now I need a change. I'm not sure if I want this, but I want a life. The last job went sideways, and they're coming for me.”
“All will be as it should be,” Gabriel replied.
“I'm not understanding,” Jared said as Gabriel took a seat at the table. “They are going to come to the farm.”
“Are you worried about Myrtle's safety?”
Jared frowned at him. “Hell no. The woman had a pet cobra named Curly! I'm afraid of her my damn self.”
“Larry,” Gabriel corrected. “The other was Frank.”
“Oh, so you're aware of her sociopathic tendencies,” he said, “and you wanted me to go there for sanctuary. Have you met her?”
“I know her well. She was my first,” Gabriel replied, watching the man's face closely.
Jared's hand fisted. He didn't like where this was going. The idea of the overly good-looking man and Doc Myrtle made his ball sac jump. “What do you mean, your first?”
“My first parishioner,” he said. “I have been doing what I do for a very long time, Jared, long before you and I were roomies at Langley. Myrtle's grandmother lived next door. She grew up next door to this home. I've known her since she was a teenager.”
“I'm still on her being your first,” Jared said, scowling at him.
“Get your mind out of the gutter. She was a smart but lonely kid, whose mother got herself into a world of trouble, and instead shipping her off to foster care, they brought her here to her grandmother, Ms. Evelyn, with whom she shares a middle name,” Gabriel told him. “Myrtle has a brilliant mind and an affinity for science. I helped focus her skills.”
Jared's lips were down-turned. “Her skills of milking cobras for their medicinal properties?”
Gabriel said, “No, creating products that your team uses to cleanly end festering issues.”
“Ok, that explains it all. You created a chemical assassin,” he said, shaking his head. “My stomach is feeling all sorts of unsettled.”
“You felt threatened when I said she was my first. Jared, have you developed an interest in Myrtle?”
“Hey, she needed help around the place, and the storm tore up more than just my truck. Plus, you told me to go there and... wait a minute,” Jared said, holding up his hands. “Oh, no you don't! Nope. Not hearing it.”
“My plan for your new life coincided with the plan of a Higher Power who put you where I was planning to send you anyway,” Gabriel said smiling.
“Don't smile at me you Bible thumping psychopath! Me and that woman? Those kids! Did you send the blond girl there? I recognized her. That was the little girl from the job about four years ago. I remember those blue eyes,” he said. “That child spit in my face and called me the N-word. You sent her there? I don't like you.”
“Yes, I sent her there to make sure she saw you again, to give her hope,” Gabriel said. “Her Uncle did a number on her, and she paid dearly over the last four years. Seeing you again gave her hope that God hadn't abandoned her.”
“Yeah, her hope made her pass out on the floor when she saw my face,” Jared said. “We are not going to talk about the other two girls or the Cranberry, who is hella scary. She looks so sweet, but her eyes give me the willies. When she looks at you, that Cranberry, I immediately want to start talking and telling her all my business. You know that little Delgado boy made a pass at her? He actually said that woman could put a few hairs on his tattoo.”
Gabriel chuckled, “I would love to have seen Helen's reaction to that! What did she say when he made the pass?”
“She went sister girl and asked, ‘What the hell?’ I nearly laughed myself. He, that one, was...heck, I don’t know how to describe him. To say he was interesting would be selling him short,” Jared said.
“His eldest brother, the Bocaracá , that one, is a really complex dude. He's intuitive on a level I’ve never seen and can read people in less than ten seconds,” Gabriel said. “There aren't many people who rattle me, but his brother rattles me.”
“Right now, I want to rattle you. Back to Myrtle, the snake charmer. What do you mean by your plan for my new life? Did...the farm...wait, what?” Jared said, fisting his hands. “You want me with Doc Myrtle and those kids?”
“Yes,” Gabriel said, rising. “I'm getting some tea. Would you like a cup?”
“No, I don't want any of your holier than thou tea. My new life and identity are that woman and those girls? How did you come to this conclusion?” Jared asked.
“I love her,” Gabriel said. “I've loved her since the day I met her, and she distrusted me. I built a trust to interact with her as a teen, and even into her adult years, I maintained a healthy distance to watch over her. We have a balanced friendship, and I love her, just as I love you.”
“Yeah, but you didn't send her out to sweep up messes and, if need be, kill people,” Jared said.
“I have never sent you to kill anyone,” Gabriel corrected.
“You gave me poisons created by the Snake Charmer, which killed people,” Jared replied.
Gabriel cocked his head and said, “You have always been one to think more deeply than the subject requires. There are times in life, Jared, that a chicken is simply a bird. Yes, it is tasty and can be prepared at least a hundred different ways to fit any culinary taste, but at the end of the night, it's just a bird.”
Jared stood up. This is where the conversation always went with his boss. He didn't care if he'd known the man for twenty years. He didn't care if what he did for a living cleared out the refuse of the world. He didn't care if he was paid well. Gabriel Neary was a meddling menace.
“And this bird you want me to marry it, and help raise them girls?”
“Jared, at the end of the night, she is a woman and you are a man,” Gabriel told him. “She is so smart, downright brilliant, if I may say so, and there is documentation to back me up. However, there are times she doesn't know what to do with all the information surging through that big brain of hers. A woman like that needs a man who can think as fast as she can, come up with workable solutions, and not try to cage that pretty bird.”
Jared stopped pacing to glare at Gabriel. “What is with you people and caging the frickin' birds?”
“Because we both know why the caged bird sings,” Gabriel said, smiling. “See what I did there? Stay here with us for a couple of days. Give her time to miss you. Let the other pieces fall into place, then, head home to your family.”
Jared didn't like not discussing matters needing to be discussed. One was the people on his trail. Two was the Archangel's desire to marry him off to a woman who milked venomous snakes and kissed like a demon and made his pants tight. She also made him want to make cute babies with her that slobbered on themselves and called him daddy. Damn it. He found himself angry for wanting a life with her and those children. Anger also stung him around the lips about what would happen if the trouble chasing him caught up and Myrtle had to deal with the issue.
“What about the other issue with that team? Gabriel, we were not playing on the same side,” Jared said. “Those kids I thought we were sent in to help, and they were loading up half for the Chrysalis.”
Gabriel paused, looking at his long-time friend and the man he called when the job needed to be done right. Jared had a prime and fair sense of right and wrong. If there was a wrong and he could help, he would. He trusted the man with his life.
“Speaking of the Chrysalis, The Cranberry, with an assist from Mr. Yield, shut down three of their warehouses last month,” Gabriel said. “She only fired one bullet into the leg of a woman who held out, not wanting to tell her where the other two warehouses were located.”
“Only one bullet,” Jared said, pursing his lips in disbelief. “She is disconcerting. How did she get on with Yield?”
“He is fascinated with her, and he kept going on about how she packed his Go-bag,” Gabriel said. “Funny thing, coming full circle, The Bushmaster's brother, his best guy friend is Mr. Yield. An odd relationship to put it mildly and Yield was the best man at his wedding. He even gets along with Tim.”
“Well, that explains that,” Jared said thinking of Yield’s flamboyant cousin. “The kid, The Bushmaster, wanted to have the man chit-chat with me about his future; told me his dad wouldn't understand. He also said he wanted us to be friends.”
Gabriel was laughing. “Really?”
“What's so funny?”
“If you made a friend in that one, your other issue will take care of itself. You only have to wait a couple of days, then head home to your new family,” Gabriel said.
“You're not funny.”
“Not being funny. Myrtle's farm was my intention for you to ease into your old age,” Gabriel said.
“I am so sick of you! How in the world do you think this is going to work out? I show up with my suitcase and collection of bullets, and she's going to clear half a closet in the bedroom for me? And what should I tell a woman who spent the last five years milking a moferking Gaboon viper about sharing her bed and taking care of wayward young girls? Explain this to me before my head explodes. I'm just supposed to walk in there and say, ‘Hey, The Archangel chose you to be my wife,” Jared said, trying not to hyperventilate.
“No, you return home and tell her The Archangel has chosen you as the only fella he deems worthy to be her man,” Gabriel said, looking at him.
The huff and puff in Jared deflated. There was no humor in his eyes when the Archangel said the words. Jared pointed at himself in disbelief at the Archangel’s regard for him as a man.
“Yes. I love her and promised her grandmother to always look out for her. My shift has come to an end,” Gabriel told her. “I have found the man who will be a husband and life partner and a man she can trust to be around the young women sent for her care.”
“But I want children of my own,” Jared whimpered out of his mouth, feeling defeated.
“And you shall have them,” Gabriel said. “Your shifts of heading up the ground crews have ended. Take your bow. We'll take it from here. But stay a day or two, do some hunting with me. I need dude time. You know, we can have the man chit-chat.”
“Again, I can't stand you,” he said, looking at Gabriel. “Seriously? Her? As my wife? I can see it.”
Later in the day, he planned to call her, let the lady know he'd made it in and to keep an eye out for the trouble on his tail. Jared also wanted to let her know that he'd be back in a few days. Gabriel's back was straight as he walked down the hall towards the cries of a child. He had yet to meet the creator of the noise and assumed that was where his friend was going, to retrieve the slobbering noisemaker for introductions. In the interim, he took out his phone and made the call. She needed to hear from him now instead of later. He wanted to hear her voice and break the waves ahead of the arrival of his headfirst dive.
“The answer's a Lemon,” she said in the line.
“I made it safely,” he said. “Are you and the girls, okay?”
“Yes, the posse came looking for you. Helen was ready for any wild ideas they wanted to bring.”
“She looks so normal.”
“Normal is relative.” There was a pause in the line. “How is our friend?”
“He's sending me back to you,” Jared said.
“And in why the hell is he doing that?”
“He stated I am the only one he deems worthy to be your man,” Jared said, hearing the air she sucked in. “Yeah, I thought the same thing too, but keep in mind, a tornado picked me up and damn near dropped me on your doorstep. Ten days with you and all I can think about is coming back to sit at the dinner table to hear rambling chatter about volleyballs and spaghetti strap sundresses. Plus, looking in your eyes makes me feel calm. I like it there. It feels like it could be home if you want me. If you want us.”
“I'm at a loss for words,” Lemon said. “I truly don't know what to say.”
He also paused for a minute. “I tell you what, in two, maybe three days, I'll be back. Clear the house. Give Cranberry the weekend off and send the girls to the movies for the night so we can be alone.”
“Alone? And what is it you're planning to do alone with me, Mr. Bane?”
“Give you an entire night of reasons to say yes to becoming Dr. Bane. Talk soon,” he said and ended the call.
Lemon held the phone, looking at it in disbelief. She turned to Helen, her eyes wide. Helen ran to her side.
“What is it, Lemon? Everything okay?”
“Not sure, but you can have the weekend off,” she told Helen.