Jack (Tucker’s Pride #4)

Chapter 8

He couldn’t help but marvel at the sea this time of the year. Colby had finally gotten his first of four ships that he wanted and he couldn’t be happier with the way things had turned out. The LouCinda, named in honor of his grandma, was booked up until the first of February. The other three ships would come as he could afford them. And from the way things were looking, it wouldn’t be that long of a wait.

The two that were going to really test his abilities were the first one in a week that had five fishermen and the second one that was carrying eight. His brother Jack was going to help him out with the food and join him on the boat for a few days. It would be like old times.

Hanging out with family had always been his favorite thing to do. Especially when there were only a couple of them to do it with. Having nine brothers and sisters had made alone time nearly nonexistent growing up, so he was going to take it when he could get it. He’d have Jack all to himself for a few days, and they’d work on the ship together and then play around at night. He was glad that his new wife, Taylor, was all for it. He loved all his family, including the ones that had come to them through mates.

“Mr. Tucker? There’s a landline call for you in the cabin.” He and the crew that he’d hired were putting the finishing touches on the Lou to be ready in the event that someone wanted to go out today or tomorrow. Going into the living area, he picked up the phone and answered it.

“My name is David Sledge. I want to book your boat for the next three days.” For whatever reason, Colby’s lion wrapped around him as if to warn him of danger. “It’ll only be for the three days, and I’m willing to pay double your rental fee if you could just let me and my crew have the boat for that amount of time.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t rent out my time like that.” He said it would only be for three days. “I heard you, Mr. Sledge but I’m not in the habit of renting out something without my being on the ship as well. It’s not the way that I do business.” He said that he’d rent the boat but how about if it was just himself but with his own crew that went out. “Again, I don’t work like that. I’m sorry. You’ll have to keep looking. To be honest, Mr. Sledge, I don’t know that there is anyone that rents out a boat without her captain and crew.”

“You’re just starting out, Mr. Tucker. How can you have those kinds of rules when you’ve not even taken out your first group?” Again, his lion wrapped tighter around him. The man knew that he was new and that was why he’d thought to get him to do what he wanted. “I mean, can you really turn down something like double your fees at this stage of the game? It’s just for three days. Two and a half if you’d like. Come on, now. I’ll triple your fees, and neither of us will be out much of anything.”

“I said that I’m not going to rent out my boat to you, Mr. Sledge. Now, if there is nothing else, I’ve things to do.” The man growled low, and that was when he realized that he might be in just a little bit of trouble here. Reaching out for Parker Foster, the grand witch of all witches. “I’m in trouble here. Big time, I think.”

“The phone call?” He told her that was it, and she told him not to hang up. He knew that one of the Fosters, he was too nervous to remember their name, could touch a phone and know just who was calling and where they were. Today, he just wanted not to be killed. Even if he couldn’t, he didn’t want to be hurt either. She told him that she had it.

“Listen here, buddy. You’re going to rent me your boat, and you’re not going to have one little bit of—Christ.” When the line went dead, he gripped it harder to his face and sat down. If not for the chair being just behind him, Colby wasn’t sure what he might have done. Landed on the floor for sure.

“I have it taken care of, Colby, my friend.” He thanked her and asked what he needed to do now. “Just hang up the phone. He’s not going to bother you again. This I promise you.”

That sounded scary to him. Very much so. So, doing as she said, still, a little weak-kneed to do any walking, Colby sat at the desk and waited for her to come to him. He figured that she would, just to explain a little of what happened but he wasn’t even sure he wanted any information right now. Just as he was getting up to do the rest of the work on the boat, Parker appeared in the room with him.

“You were smart to call someone to help you.” He asked her if he’d wanted him to dump a body. “Smart man. Yes, that’s exactly what he wanted from you. Mr. Sledge had two, as a matter of fact, that he needed to get rid of quickly. You’re a smart man.”

“I’m a terrified one, is what I am.” She laughed, and so did he. “As soon as he wanted to rent my boat without my crew scared me enough to know that I was in over my head. Will that happen a lot, do you think? That someone will think they can just rent my boat for nefarious things?”

“Yes. You’re new to the area and they figure that you have no experience with dealing with that sort of pushy person and that you’d cave when he got aggressive with you. Or that you’re so desperate for money that you’ll do just about anything to get a few bucks to keep you going. I’m going to make it so that you won’t have that problem again. When men of his caliber are looking for a way to get out of a sticky situation call, they won’t see your number anywhere.” He thanked her. “You’re so very welcome. Also, if something happens while you’re out on a fishing trip, I’m going to give you a faerie to help. She’ll be able to keep you apprised of anything that is going on from now on.”

After Parker left, he felt a bit better. He’d even remembered to ask her about the trips that he had booked and she told him he’d be just fine. Deciding that he needed to have some things on the boat to keep him and his crew safe, Colby got online and looked at things that they could use. He never thought of how far out in the water he would be with perfect strangers.

“I have a couple of questions for you.” He smiled when Jack contacted him. “Do you have a menu that they can choose from? Like you know, lunch is sandwiches. Dinner will be three or four courses. Anything like that?”

“No. Though I think that sandwiches for lunch would be perfect. They can still enjoy fishing while eating. And smaller bags of chips to hold onto.” They talked about having things easier to eat than what he’d have in his restaurant and then things to have for dinner. “If the crew catches some of the fish, will you be able to serve those up as well?”

It was great to be able to bounce ideas off of Jack, too. He was a smart person to go to when he had questions about food and serving things to his guests. The one thing that he’d been sure to go over with him was a drinks menu.

While there weren’t going to be any drinks on his boat that he provided, a person could bring on some of their own so long as they signed a waiver saying that they were responsible for themselves if something were to go wrong when renting the crew and boat out. Also, he would provide the fishing gear for the trip. Again, so long as they signed a waiver if they were to bring their own, they were solely responsible for it.

There were other things that they discussed while talking, and when he realized it was coming up on six, Colby said that he had a date and needed to get ready for it. Of course, that got his brother to teasing him, and when he closed the connection, he was still smiling.

He knew this woman wasn’t his mate. Colby had been out with her before. They were just fuck buddies. Each of them knew that nothing could ever be more than it was at that moment. Still, she was fun to have on his arm when he wanted a nice dinner and perhaps a play to go and see. No attachments were his favorite way to date.

Picking up Olivia at seven, they were headed to the restaurant when she told him about her job. She was a beat cop and enjoyed her job a great deal. There had been a murder-suicide happening today, and she was telling him how they’d found two frozen bodies in the place after the police were called. Colby nearly ran off the road when she mentioned frozen bodies.

“Are you all right?” He nodded, afraid that he might confess to something that he didn’t have anything to do with. “You looked a little frightened there for a moment. Did you hear about it down at the docks?”

“No, I didn’t hear about it. The radio was on. Maybe I heard something about it then. You know how much Randy loves to have his music blaring.” She laughed and said she wondered if he could hear very well he liked it so loud. “So there was a man that killed someone, and you found the bodies in the freezer?”

“Something like that. The guy was a big-time thug that we’ve been trying to get for a few years. When the call came in about hearing gunshots, they sent someone to his residence and found four bodies on the front steps. In the house, they could see this guy named Archer sitting at his desk with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. It looked like he’d shot the other four men then himself. He actually left a note on his desk telling the police where to find the other two bodies. As you can imagine, it’s been a day at work with this call.”

Olivia trusted him as much as he did her. However, he thought that his trust of late was a little less than she was to him. Since the call today, he’d been jumpy, too, not wanting to tell anyone what he was feeling or going through. Colby was sure that even if the murder-suicide hadn’t happened that way, that was the way everyone on the scene was going to see it. Parker would make sure of it.

After dinner, the two of them decided to go see a movie. It was still light out enough that they figured they’d walk to the theater and enjoy some popcorn as well. He couldn’t believe how much it cost to just see a movie but he was willing to pay it for a night of good conversation and fun. Colby didn’t realize how much he needed this night just as he was dropping Olivia off at her place. She said it was a bad night for him to stay over, and he found that he was all right with that. He wanted a good night’s sleep, and being at home would pretty much guarantee that.

At three-thirty, his phone woke him up. It took him three tries to get the person on the other end of the line to stop talking long enough that he could figure out what was going on. It wasn’t until he was sitting on the side of the bed, a faerie with him, that he understood that he needed to go and rescue someone. From where, he wasn’t that caught up yet, but he’d do it for the family.

“She’s powerful upset.” He told Crumble that he would to if he’d been arrested. “Not Arrested, sir, but she’s a witness to a death.”

“Oh, I thought that she was in jail. Didn’t you tell me that she was in jail?” Crumble explained again he thought it was the forth time that while the woman was at the jail, she hadn’t been arrested. Just the witness to a murdered human. Thinking he’d finally gotten it figured out, he drove them both to the police station and asked for Officer Colrain who had been in charge when Crumble had been there.

“Is she your master?” While he hated that word, he knew that it was the only one that the little faerie would understand when talking about the person he was supposed to be looking after.

“Nay, she is my friend’s master. Darling was off tonight, and I was with her. I didn’t see anything. She kindly kept me away from the murderer. But she asked me to get one of the Tuckers and you were the closest one that I knew to her.” He was there because he was a Tucker and close. Better, he supposed, than being the one dead, he shivered. “I don’t usually go out on trips like this one, but Darling’s wife just had them a baby, and he wanted to be there with her. Emma, the master understood and said it was fine by her to have another in his place. She’s very nice, Ms. Emma. The others, your family has taken her under their armpits and want her to keep safe.”

“It’s wing, not armpits.” Crumble looked confused and said that humans didn’t have wings. Letting it go, Colby changed the subject. “So why am I here if she’s not in trouble? I’m assuming that she had some kind of part in the accident?”

“Nay, she had nothing to do with it. Because of her magical truck, she stopped in time to not do more damage. She is very lucky, the officer said in that she didn’t muck up—I don’t know what that means—any more than it already is. It was three cars that slammed into one another.”

Colby was getting more and more information and understanding less and less. He didn’t have a faerie around all that often, but when he did, he knew them to be confusing and a little aggravating. It was why he had opted not to have one around him when he came here. He didn’t want to have to spend all his time in trying to figure out what was being said.

Finding the girl was easier than he thought it might be. She wasn’t in a cell but in one of the offices of the large stationhouse. There was a blanket over her head, and he could see water stains on the back of the towel. Entering the room with her, Crumble said her name lightly so as to get her attention.

~*~

Emma looked at the man after asking Crumble if he was all right. She might well have done that several times over the last few hours, but she couldn’t remember. She remembered a lot that had happened, but talking about the little person who might well have saved her life, she didn’t remember.

“Crumble said that you were near an accident.” She nodded and told him that it had happened right in front of her. “I’m sorry to hear that. He said that several people were killed when the crash happened.”

“I didn’t hit the car by an inch. By an inch.” She tried to calm her voice down. “We were coming up on the light when this man in a red SUV leaned out of his car and shot the man in the car beside him. Just pulled out his gun and shot the man. I’m assuming in the head because the windshield splattered with blood the moment I heard the sound of the gunshot.”

The man nodded, but she thought that he was humoring her. Looking at Crumble, he still had spots of blood on his…tunic? Dress? She didn’t know, but it was on him. Pointing it out to him, he did a little body shake, and not only was he cleaned up but he had on different colored clothing as well. Emma put her head down and closed her eyes.

“The police said that it was nothing more than road rage. When one of the cars tried to pass the one with the shot victim, he was shot, too. Like the man wanted to be first in the race, and he was going to kill anyone that got in his way.” Someone asked, she didn’t know if it was Crumble or the man if she’d been shot at, and she nodded before speaking. “He turned the gun my way even though I’m at least six feet above him. All the bullet did was ricochet off the front of the rig and hit his car. That must have pissed him off more because he was coming at me to my door to, I guess, kill me too.”

The door opened behind her, and she didn’t bother looking. Someone had been coming into the room since she was brought in a few hours ago. When someone put their hand on her back, it was all she could do not to scream and cringe from the warmth. Every part of her was freaking out, and she didn’t much care for it. Sitting up, she looked at the woman.

“I’m Bailee. We talked the other day.” Nodding, she sat up higher in the chair she was in. “You’re just fine, you know that, don’t you? No harm came to you as I promised you and your mother.”

“I should be dead.” Nodding once, she sat down across from her, and that was when she realized that they were alone in the room. There was also a cup of what looked like tea in front of her with a few cookies on the plate. “That little guy. He snatched me back and did something to me to make sure I didn’t die, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Crumble is very good at his job of protecting people. You wouldn’t have died, not from the shooting, but had the man been able to get you out of the truck before he was killed, he would have surely murdered you. He would have run over you with your truck and killed—” She put up her hand, and Bailee stopped talking. “You’re all right, as I have said to you.”

“It scared me. The way he looked like he was just going to do what he did without anyone stopping him.” Emma looked at Bailee. “My mom, does she know that I was…whatever I was?”

“She is aware only that there was an accident that you were no part of but only as a witness. Nothing more. I didn’t think that it would do either of you any good for her to know everything right now.” Emma thanked her. “I had no idea when you left yesterday that this would have happened. I only wanted to see how long it would be before you were to get to each of the stores along Taylor’s routes. For returns, you see.”

“I know that shit happens, but this was about as close as I’ve ever come to hitting anyone or even causing damage to anything since I’ve been driving.” Bailee told her that was why they hired her. “Thank you. I’m assuming that I still have a job? I mean, why would you come all this way if I didn’t… how did you get here so fast? Is it that magic stuff again?”

“Yes, the magic stuff.” She knew that they had magic. Not that she wanted to believe it, but if she were to be in her rig right now, she could go to her bedroom and lie down on a nice king-sized bed. Get her things out of dressers or her closet and take a shower in her full sized bathroom that was tucked into the little spaces that were there for her. There was even a fully operating kitchen with a table and two chairs she could sit at should she want to have lunch while not driving. “You’ve decided to believe me when I tell you that we’re magical?”

“Honestly? I have no idea what I want to believe. The living room in my rig begs me to say I believe you, but in my head, there are just too many things that tell me that there is no such thing as magic.” She eyed her hard. “No one has to shift to make sure I understand that there are lion shifters either. I got that, too.”

Bailee laughed and she didn’t find any humor in her. Not any of them. If not for the contract, she might well have not worked for them had she not already signed it. There was something extremely strange about all the Tuckers, and she wasn’t entirely sure that any of them weren’t a little off their meds.

“Drink your tea, Emma. It’ll make you feel better.” She eyed the tea and then looked at Bailee when she laughed again. “I promise you there is nothing in it other than a bit of sugar. The cookies are just that. Cookies. Just have a few sips, and you’ll see, you’ll feel much better.”

“The police are going to send me to the hospital. They’re afraid that I’ve had a bit of trauma. They don’t know that half of it. I feel like I’ve been put into a large rabbit hole and can’t find my way out. You’re not helping.” She told her that she was trying her best. “Yeah? Well, it’s not working. I don’t even know…I’m freaked the fuck out right now.”

“No, you’re just still wondering how you can be alive when he shot you. He did, you know. Shot you twice in the head. But as you said, Crumble saved you and you’re going to be just fine. Nothing happened that you can explain to the police. You understand that, don’t you?” She said that they’d lock her away. “More than likely just put you in the hospital for a few weeks, but we can’t have that, now can we? You have a good job, and it keeps you from getting hurt. I told you several times that we take care of those that we love.”

She was, in the end, taken to the hospital. The man who had come in with Crumble when she was at the police station was hanging around a lot. Twice, the nurse had to ask him to move so that she could do something for her, but other than that, he didn’t say much. He did look like he was pissed off, but she had enough on her mind right now not to be fucking with a stranger.

At two in the morning, she was released to go home. Where that was from where she was, Emma didn’t know, but she wanted a good night’s sleep and some food in her belly before she started driving again. She knew that she could do it, even after the scare, because it was something that she needed to do. Her mom had found them a home that she loved.

Emma didn’t really care for the house that her mom had found for them. It wasn’t ugly or anything, but it was too big. Three bedrooms wasn’t all that large, but after living in the rig for the past five years, it seemed huge to her. It was the yard that she loved, she told her mom and she was already putting a garden in so that she could have some fresh veggies when she wanted them. Another perk was that she could park her rig in the driveway and it not be in the way of her mom’s car that she’d gotten.

Someone had parked her rig in the parking lot of the truck stop. She wasn’t too far out that she couldn’t get to it without going through a lot of darkness but it was safe as far as she could see. No bullet holes or anything that she could see either.

“Do you have an extra blanket?” she asked the man, his name was Colby if he needed a pillow too, not having any idea why he’d need a blanket. “I’m going to stay out here in my car to make sure that you’re all right.”

“I’m fine. It’s stupid for you to sleep in your car when you have a home someplace around here.” He told her he had a boat, too, that he could sleep in, but wanted to be close to her. “I don’t want you to waste your time sleeping around here. I’m going to get into my rig, lock the door, sleep for about forty hours, and get up and start again.”

“All right then.” She tossed a pillow and a blanket at him. She was disappointed when he was able to catch them both but went into her rig and decided to forget all about him. He was an idiot if he thought that she was going to invite him into her place, especially after what happened that evening.

The bed was cozy and warm. Large enough for her to stretch out in, too. After getting herself situated, she thought a little about what Bailee had told her about lion shifters. And when she’d not believed her, she had her husband shift into his and lay across her lap. Emma had nearly wet herself when he did that.

But he had been beautiful. Never being this close to a large lion, she was told that because he was a leader to a leap, he was larger than his brothers, even the older one. His mane was wonderfully soft and his fur along his face and nose wasn’t anything like she thought it would be. The entire experience with him had been telling and a lot nerve-wracking.

Waking at sometime in the middle of the morning, she could hear voices and didn’t bother with getting up. It was Crumble, and he was talking to one of his friends, she supposed. The little man had saved her life. The very least that she could do was to allow him to have company when he wanted it. Rolling to her side again, enjoying the comforts of her rig, Emma closed her eyes and went right back to sleep.

At noon, her alarm clock telling her the time, she got up. It still boggled her mind that she had enough room in her rig to have a stand-up shower along with all the other things. Washing her hair twice, she was ready to face the day and to see how many more miles she could get under her belt before she wasn’t allowed to drive again.

“Hi.” She looked at the man before it occurred to her that it was the guy who had wanted to sleep out in his car. Not that she would have allowed him to sleep in her rig, but she did let him come into her space when he told her that he’d gotten coffee and donuts. “I got a variety because I didn’t know what kind you’d eat.”

“They’re donuts. What’s not to like about them.” She did get her a glass of juice, not caring for coffee at all. When she was settled into her seat across from the man, she finally remembered his name. “Colby Tucker. Crumble got you when I asked him to get one of the Tuckers. I guess I could have handled it myself, but I was freaked a little out.”

“You were a lot freaked out, not that I blame you. It was a close call for you. I’m glad that you’re all right.” She nodded, finishing off her second donut in favor of conversation. “I was wondering if I could follow you to your next stop. Taylor suggested it, telling me that you might need a second pair of hands when you get to the last stop. I guess you’re picking up bags for the grocery stores.”

“Im not sure what I’m supposed to do with them. I thought I was bringing them back to the warehouse.” Colby explained to her that they were going to break them down so that any one store wouldn’t have too many to deal with. “I guess that makes sense. Yeah, I suppose it’s all right if you follow me. Or you can just ride in the rig with me. I’m used to having my mom around, so you being there all the time won’t be too bad.”

“Gee, thanks.” She finished up her breakfast and told him that she had to get some supplies. As soon as she got out of the rig, he followed her. Whatever floated his boat, she supposed. But she wasn’t going to allow him to bother her too much. She really did have a lot to do today.