Chapter 22 - The Re
Chapter 22
The Reunion
Andi paced the third floor of the bookshop. There was so much dust on everything she could grow tomatoes. It had been sixteen minutes and Dan wasn’t with her. Neither was the sheriff. Both promised they’d follow her to the bookshop.
If the station was hit by the men who wanted her dead, she should have been there.
“No. Didn’t happen,” she said to the silence. She would have heard shots from next door.
Maybe they were called out on a wreck. Another no echoed off the silent walls. Either the sheriff or Dan, or even Digger, would stay behind to guard her. These men, grown in the heart of Texas, were brave and determined and dumb to think she couldn’t take care of herself.
Andi thought of one other thing the deputy was. He was lovable.
She decided to give them a few more minutes as she sat down on a huge old desk. She began to think. Somehow, she’d lost control of her life. If she’d not come to this town, if she hadn’t let Dan take her to his place last night, she wouldn’t have kissed him or cuddled with him. She should have stayed in Dallas. She should have fought her own fight on turf she knew, and come to meet her brothers later when all was calm.
Snuggling with the deputy meant nothing, she told herself. She’d just been cold. But, for a blink, she remembered how good it felt. He cared about her but she couldn’t get involved. She knew when she started this dangerous career, she’d always be alone.
She needed to make her own plan. Too many people were involved. Someone might get hurt. She was in hiding in the middle of town with only a bony bookstore owner to bar the door. Surely, she could come up with a better strategy. The more people involved in her problem, the more people who might get hurt.
Andi reached for her weapon strapped to her ankle. She checked to make sure it was loaded. Two bullets left. She felt she was about to go into a sword fight with a pocketknife.
She liked Noah and he made good coffee but the man was a thinker, not a fighter. She’d bet he didn’t even own a gun.
Andi hated this. She was a runner, a fighter, a risk-taker, not someone who hid away like a rat.
Suddenly footsteps seemed to thunder outside the door. Three people were climbing the stairs fast. Her only choice was to hide.
She slipped under the desk and waited. From the noise she guessed that men were coming as fast as they could. Coming to kill her or to tell her she was safe. She wouldn’t know until the door was opened.
Only two bullets. She needed another weapon.
She felt around under the huge office desk with every other drawer missing. Dust everywhere. Old yellow newspapers. A few thin books taped to the underside of the desk so long ago they threatened to fall. Three Playboys open with pages missing. An empty beer bottle and several candy wrappers. Two Coke cans with candles pushed into the opening. It occurred to her this might be the R-rated section of the bookshop.
The invaders stomped and slowed. They were on the third floor. The doorknob slowly turned.
Andi stood, feet wide apart. Arms straight out. Elbows locked. Finger on the trigger. She took a breath and slowly advanced. She’d die, but the first two men who entered wouldn’t be around to spend the money for her killing.
The door rattled open and a kid of about fifteen jumped in. Dark hair. He was breathing fast and hard. When he saw her, he froze, then slowly raised his hands as if he’d seen a hundred gangster movies. His wide gray eyes looked like they were in danger of falling out.
“Don’t move,” she said as she lowered the weapon. The kid’s gaze followed the gun.
“Breathe, kid.” She holstered her firearm as she heard the sheriff yelling her name.
Suddenly it sounded to Andi like another stampede rushing up the stairs, but she had to deal with these three first.
“Who are you?” she shouted at the boy.
He couldn’t get a word out. Hands up, not breathing, and staring at Andi like she was an alien.
Keeping her eyes on the teenager, she saw a man in a suit out of the corner of her eye. He stepped inside the room holding a suitcase over his heart as he moved wide to the left. His voice was familiar. The lawyer. “He’s your little brother, Andi. I found him just like I said I would.”
She turned to the lawyer she’d spoken with weeks ago on the phone. “Jackson, right. You’re sure he is my brother?”
“He is,” a stranger said as he moved between her and the kid. “He’s my brother, too.”
Andi felt like everyone in the room was speaking a foreign language. She couldn’t even get a word in as the kid and his bigger brother introduced themselves at lightning speed.
The room suddenly fell silent. The offspring of Jamie Morrell just stared at one another.
The sheriff slowly opened the storage room door and frowned liked he missed the start of a show.
The only one who seemed willing to talk was the lawyer. He explained that Andi was in danger and it would be good if all of them vanished for a few days while the sheriff could make sure the men who shot at her last night were gone.
Suddenly Rusty, her newfound older brother, started asking questions.
“Where’d you come from?”
“Why are men chasing you?”
“How come you didn’t come see us before?”
The kid said to his brother, “She doesn’t have gray eyes.”
Rusty glanced at the lawyer and added, “Didn’t you tell us she was a guy?”
The kid broke into the questions to explain a fact to this big brother. “Maybe she was a man, Rusty. I heard some guys just cut . . .”
“Shut up,” everyone in the room shouted. Rusty looked embarrassed. The sheriff frowned as if trying to figure out who to shoot, and Andi decided she loved this kid.
Both new brothers moved close to her as if they were her bodyguards.
Andi opened her mouth to tell Rusty a “one-minute brother” can’t boss her around, but she looked at the kid. He was in need of a haircut and had two dirty Band-Aids on his right hand and both her new brothers’ clothes were worn and in need of care.
Andi logged the facts. No woman in their lives. They were tall but bone thin, and the younger one didn’t look like he could talk to the opposite sex. Like they were stray cats, and Andi wanted to adopt them.
The kid just stared at her.
Andi winked at him and he smiled. Then one tear rolled down his sunburned cheek. “You could have died before I ever met you,” he said in a shaky voice. “In the will, we thought you were a brother. Last year, when I came to town, I didn’t have any kin. Then I found Rusty, and now you showed up and I’ve got two. Maybe even three, if the last one comes along. ”
The “almost a man” wrapped his arms around her and forced himself not to cry as he kept saying, “I got a sister.”
Andi patted Zach’s back as she looked around. Rusty and the sheriff were talking while the lawyer seemed to be patting himself on the back. Random questions bounced off the walls but no one was answering.
She was in real trouble. She had a little brother worried about her and a big brother who seemed to think he was in charge of her. The sheriff was threatening to lock them all up for their safety.
Andi closed her eyes. Questions circled the room but for once in her life Andi felt she was a part of a family.
The second wave of visitors stormed up the two flights of stairs. It sounded like troopers. There was no question one was Danny. He was calling her name as if she might not hear him coming. “Andi! Andi.”
She was boiling over with emotions. When he rushed the door, she jumped into his arms. Everyone in the room laughed as books and chairs flew out of the couple’s way.
The kid leaned toward his big brother and said, “Our sister must like deputies.”
Rusty looked worried. “I hope she just likes one. Two deputies won’t fit in our house.”