Chapter 18
“Daisy?” Janie asked, pushing open the screen door and sticking her head outside to look in Daisy’s direction.
Daisy sat in an Adirondack chair on the far corner of the porch, sipping some chamomile tea. She turned her head toward her mother. “Yes, ma’am?”
“I’m going to have some pie. You want a piece?” Janie asked.
“No, thank you.”
“You sure? It’s key lime.”
“No, I’m not really hungry.”
“Okay. You mind if I come sit with you?”
“No, come on out,” Daisy said. She smiled a little to herself, knowing that no matter where she went, or what she did, her mother would always want her company, especially when her dad wasn’t around.
Her parents were inseparable, and when her father was out and about, her mother always gravitated toward her.
And that was fine. Daisy actually liked the security.
It wasn’t long before Janie was back, smiling happily at her daughter, carrying a plate of pie and a cup of coffee.
“I don’t know how you sleep at all when you drink coffee so late in the evening,” Daisy said.
“Well, you’re drinking tea,” Janie said.
“Yes, but it’s chamomile. It’s relaxing, to help you sleep.”
“You always did have a bit of insomnia. But I really feel like you do your best work in the middle of the night,” Janie said.
“I do, don’t I?” Daisy asked, sipping her tea again.
“You do.” Janie looked around and smiled. “I do like these pre-fall nights. It’s not summer anymore, but it’s not really fall either,” Janie said.
“I’m so looking forward to it getting cooler. I love the fall and the winter,” Daisy said.
“Me, too. I think I might ask your father to take me for a walk in the woods when he gets home, if it’s not too late and he’s not too tired,” Janie said.
Daisy looked at her mother again. “Where is Daddy?”
“He had a few things to take care of,” Janie said thoughtfully, not wanting to lie, but not wanting to tell the truth either.
“Seems suspicious.”
“Why in the world would it seem suspicious?” Janie asked, giggling.
“Because you’re giggling, which you do when you try to mislead somebody. And because you’re being evasive. Just evasive enough to not tell a lie so I can scent it. And because Uncle Bam told me he saw Charlie drive away with Havoc and Lucien, and Dad went with them, too.”
“Oh, Daisy,” she said, still giggling, “you’re imagining things. And so is Bam!”
“Mom! Uncle Bam does not imagine seeing all four of them driving away.”
The headlights of a vehicle shone in their direction from the fork of the road near Kaid’s house, then the vehicle started slowly down the road toward them. “Maybe that’s your dad,” Janie said.
“I’m pretty sure it is,” Daisy said, keeping watch on Havoc’s truck as it got closer.
Janie set her plate and cup aside and stood, walking slowly toward the front of the porch.
Daisy could sense the apprehension in her mother as she waited for Havoc’s truck to reach them and come to a stop.
As soon as the truck actually stopped, the passenger side door opened, and Bane got out. “Honey, I’m home,” he said wearing a hint of a smile.
Janie rushed down the steps and threw herself into his arms. “I know you’re capable, I do. I really, really do. But I hate when you go out to take care of things, even when I’m all for it. I just worry so very much.”
“I know, love. But it’s fine. Look,” he said, hooking his thumb in the direction of the truck, “nobody got hurt. Lucien is naked, but that’s the worst that happened.”
The rear driver’s side door opened and Charlie got out.
Daisy’s gaze pinpointed him immediately. She set her cup down on the porch railing then stood up and moved toward the steps. “What is going on here?” she asked.
Havoc opened the driver’s door and got out, standing on the running board of the truck so he could wave at them over the top of his truck. “Hey! How y’all doing tonight? Everything’s lovely, no unexpected issues. Handled our business all neat and problem free.”
Daisy looked from Charlie to Havoc, and then back again. “What business?”
The rear passenger side window rolled down and Lucien stuck his head out.
“I can’t get out. Naked as the day I was born, but I just want to say that I’ve been feeling the need to address the situation since I first met you, so it should be no surprise.
Brandt was supposed to go, but since Tempest is ready to pop, he opted to stay home, so Havoc, Charlie, and Bane opted in. ”
“I insisted we tell your father. He had a right more so than the rest of us,” Charlie said.
“Except for you,” Havoc reminded him.
Daisy knew without a doubt what they’d gone to attempt to do. She just didn’t know exactly how they went about it. “What exactly did you do?” she asked.
“Paid a worthless piece of shit a visit, told him to expect some charges to be coming his way. Beat a pound or two of vengeance out of his flesh while we were at it,” Charlie said.
Daisy shook her head and her gaze fell on the stair between them.
“Yeah, and that psycho bitch he was married to, too. Lucien just terrified the hell out of her, and made her pass out a little more roughly than it should have been if she was any kind of woman and not a damn banshee psycho,” Havoc said.
“I tell you, if I was either one of them, having to live with the other, I’d have shot myself a long time ago. ”
“Yep, you did say that,” Lucien said.
“Why are you naked?” Daisy asked, already knowing before she asked.
“My Gator’s big. When he makes an appearance, all the clothes go to tatters,” Lucien said with a wink, grinning at her.
“Why did you shift?” Daisy whispered.
“We left them both alive. Pissing on themselves and out cold, but alive. Then he made the mistake of chasing down your dad while me and Charlie were wiping away the evidence of us being inside the house. He pulled a gun on him and was going to shoot him. There wasn’t no decision making about it.
It was your dad, or him. And it’s him I left stuffed in that gator hole back in the bayou, so your dad could come home,” Lucien said.
Daisy shook her head, as tears started to slowly leak from between her lashes. “I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want any of you to be dragged into the gutter along with my name. I wanted to keep you out of it. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Seriously?” Havoc asked flatly. “They are shit people, or were,” he said with a grin.
“They ain’t a pimple on your ass, not that I know you got a pimple on your ass, but still, if you did, it would be better than that fucker or his wife.
They deserve every damn thing waiting on them in hell.
Do not stand there and tell me that you think a damn thing they ever thought or did made a difference. ”
“I should have known better,” Daisy said.
“You couldn’t have known,” Charlie said.
“How do you know?” Daisy asked.
“I learned a lot about shifters and mates on the drive there and back. You couldn’t read him because he was probably a mate. But he wasn’t the mate, I’m the mate. And I’d go there again and again and again to make them pay for what they did to you.”
Daisy raised her gaze to his.
“You’re not the only one, Daisy. There are others.
His wife harassed them all, intimidated them into leaving so they wouldn’t press charges and disrupt her gilded life.
You can’t blame yourself for being victimized by a predator.
Especially not one you were conditioned to trust, because he was one of your instructors. ”
“And we all feel better, relieved. So don’t worry about feeling guilty because we went to avenge you. That’s what family does — ours anyway,” Havoc said.
“Yeah, and I found the best fucking restaurant. I cannot wait to go there and get the seafood muffaletta. I’m tasting it already,” Lucien said.
“It’s all taken care of, baby-girl. Just let it go. It’s done,” Bane said, still holding Janie as he looked up at her standing on the porch.
Daisy nodded, but she didn’t seem convinced.
“I bet you wake up tomorrow lighter. Some of that guilt and self-loathing you been carrying lifted and gone,” Lucien said. “Didn’t I tell you if you didn’t tell me who hurt you, I’d find out and kill them all?”
“I believe what you actually said was that you’d follow me around and kill everybody until you got the right one.”
“Same thing, less effort,” Lucien said, laughing. “And don’t worry about the wife. She’s breathing, but I’m pretty sure she’ll be in a rubber room for the rest of her life if she keeps telling the stories she’s gonna tell.”
Daisy looked at him, not quite understanding.
“She saw me shift into a Gator, then take her husband into Bayou St. John, do you really think anybody is going to believe her? Especially with the way she screeches about everything and demands people listen to her? They’ll medicate her and lock her away.
Some things worse than death, you know? And Charlie told her we’d be back for her, so any sense of peace is gone. She’s scared for the rest of her life.”
Charlie moved closer, pausing just before the bottom step. “Daisy?”
Daisy focused on him. “This is what you took the day off for?”
Charlie nodded.
“I went to your office to take you lunch, but you weren’t there.”
He smiled at her. “I had business to take care of.”
“The receptionist said that you had to take the day off… something about your girlfriend. I thought she meant someone else. I even asked her if she ever met your girlfriend. She said no, but she heard the guys talking about how pretty she is. I just thanked her and left.”