Chapter 6
Six
Forgive and forget? I’m not Jesus, nor do I have Alzheimer’s.
—Hux’s secret thoughts
Hux
I watched her come home in her fancy new truck.
She pulled into her driveway, which was across the street and down a few from my own, then got out and dragged herself inside.
She looked run-ragged.
I felt another twinge of guilt.
I knew what kind of taskmaster my mother could be.
Creed called the moment that she closed herself inside her place.
I could see everything that she did because she had no curtains in her house. Which also meant the assholes across the street from her could also see.
“Hey,” I answered. “Your sister needs some damn curtains. Hubers are salivating.”
Creed cursed. “I was supposed to come over and do that today, but we had some poachers, and I didn’t get around to it.”
“Well, get around to it tomorrow,” I ordered. “Patrick is currently on his front porch watching your sister through her living room window heating up a pizza.”
“Goddammit,” Creed growled. “The sick fucks.”
The Hubers were the freakin’ worst.
I’d been dealing with them my entire life, and each subsequent generation got worse.
Which was impressive because I’d thought Lanny, the father of the two “men,” was awful enough.
“They’re something,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Wanted to call to see if you could tell me if Bernice was there, but you answered that already,” he said. “She called me multiple times today. I got worried, but I was hung up with the poachers and never got a chance to call her back. When I finally did, she didn’t answer.”
“Well,” I said as I watched her eat her pizza as she walked into her bedroom and flicked her light on. “She’s home and eating. Looks like she’s getting ready for bed.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “If you can see that well a few houses down, the Hubers probably have a front-row view.”
“That they do,” I agreed.
“I’ll get there tomorrow.” He groaned. “I’m still in Wyoming.”
“Wyoming?” I asked.
“Long story,” he said. “Go put cardboard on her window.”
Before I could say anything more, there were raised voices, and Creed cursed. “Gotta go.”
I hung up and went in search of a cardboard box I could cut up.
By the time I found something to use and walked over, Bernice was passed out fully clothed on her bed, the plate of pizza half finished.
By the time I finished, Harvey and his girlfriend—fiancée?—arrived, Heidi fresh on their heels.
I was halfway to the door when Hampton and his wife, Candice, arrived with my one and only niece.
Polly looked miserable, so I pulled her from her mother’s arms and snuggled her close. “How’s my Polly?”
Polly, two years old going on forty, wrapped her arms around my neck and snuggled in deep.
Her not talking had me more worried than ever.
Polly was a chatterbox and always had been.
She may not be understandable, but she never let that stop her.
“Her fever’s down,” Candice said. “Thanks for hosting dinner this week. I’m exhausted.”
“You have the flu, too?”
Candice shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m just exhausted from having to take care of her while Hampton was on shift, or if it’s because I was sick, too. Today was the first day that we both felt somewhat normal in forty-eight hours. That cough, though…”
Speaking of her cough, it was hot and wet against my neck.
I patted Polly’s back.
“Pizza should be here in a minute.”
Just as I said that, the pizza man pulled up.
There were only four restaurants in Sawtooth.
Toot Toot’s—which was more of a bar.
Hopps.
Harvest, which required a reservation to get in.
And then there was Papa’s.
Papa’s was really good, and I was really looking forward to the pizza.
Polly sat with me and picked at the cheese on her pizza while the rest of us devoured our food.
“So your brother tells me that the new girl got put through the wringer today,” Romina said, eyes alight with anger.
Romina and my mother didn’t get along.
Neither did Candice and my mom.
Heidi barely tolerated my mom.
But poor Candice and Romina? They were screwed.
My mother didn’t like women. Especially not women who took her baby boys away from her.
Or, at least, that was the way she saw it.
Anything that took her children’s time away from her was a bad thing.
I was sure that Mom would hate Heidi’s man, too, if Heidi ever shared that she was dating someone seriously.
Bells, who was also one of my club brothers, was a good man.
I liked him a lot and loved him for my sister.
I also knew that he could stick up for himself, but Heidi didn’t want to go through the hassle. She’d seen what my mother put Candice and Romina through on a daily basis.
She didn’t want to have to deal with her shit.
Which was understandable.
My mother was why I kept things casual.
One, I didn’t want to bring a woman into a situation that she’d be miserable in—I’d seen enough of the fights between Candice and Hampton, as well as Harvey and Romina.
Two, my mother clung to me since I was her “baby.”
It would be so much worse for any woman that I dated.
Third, I didn’t like my mom and dad’s relationship.
If I ended up with a life like my dad had, I’d shoot myself.
“She did,” I confirmed. “She was still working hard when I left at three.”
“You should’ve gone over there to help,” Candice admonished. “If you let your mom run her off on the first day—or even the first week—she’s going to just force y’all to work more.”
“Agreed,” Heidi grumbled.
“Even worse that she has asthma,” Harvey interjected.
“She has asthma?” I asked, surprised.
“She does.” Harvey groaned. “She told Mom that she couldn’t do anything super physically demanding, and there Mom is, forcing her to do all kinds of shit. She’s going to sue our mother.”
“Good,” Heidi grumbled. “Maybe they’ll force her to shut the damn place down.”
“One could hope,” I mumbled as I got up and reached for the phone.
The damn new girl was a pain in my ass.
Literally since she’d knocked my bike over today, forcing a screw to tear a hole in my bike seat.
Yet, I wasn’t going to let one of my club brother’s sister get fucked over.
Or die while working at our family’s store.
Overworking her was one thing. Going against her medical needs was another.
Mom picked up on the second ring. “Oh, look who’s calling. My favorite baby boy.”
Since I was on speaker, my entire family heard.
Candice gagged.
Romina flipped my phone off.
Heidi downed half a cup of wine.
My brothers both rolled their eyes.
They knew the pecking order.
“Mom, I heard that the new girl has asthma.”
No point in beating around the bush.
“She said she has it, but I doubt it,” Mom admitted.
“She does,” I said. “She’s one of my club brother’s sister. She has asthma. Bad asthma. If she does something for you that she’s not supposed to be doing, and she gets hurt, she’s going to sue you.”
“She won’t,” my mother immediately disagreed.
“She will,” I said. “And her brother’s important here. Don’t force him to do anything to protect her. He’ll do it, and he won’t apologize for it.”
“He could try.”
“Mother.” I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“The Dixie Wardens own this town and the two surrounding it. Trust me when I say, if you piss them off, not even I can help you. They’ll boycott your business, and anyone that’s family or friends of the Dixie Wardens won’t come into your store.
Trust me when I say, you don’t want this fight. ”
“You’re exaggerating.” My mother sighed.
“I’m not,” I disagreed vehemently. “And I also think that you need to be careful about how you treat her. She’s liked by everyone. You hurt her in any way, or wrong her, everyone’s going to know that, too.”
Okay, so maybe I had no clue what everyone would do. But I know what I would do if my sister had been mistreated, and there wasn’t any way in the world that I would let it go. I’d burn the world down for my sister.
“What do you suggest I do?” She sounded exasperated. “Let her work there and not do anything?”
I rolled my eyes so hard that my head ached.
“I suggest you let her do the job you originally hired her for,” I told her. “Let her work the front counter and stock shelves if it’s not too exerting. Let her do anything inside that she can do, including the medications. But don’t have her out there running the forklift or lifting heavy boxes.”
“Well, if she doesn’t, who will?”
“Hire someone,” I suggested. “A man that can handle that.”
“That’s sexist. Women can do anything a man can do.”
“I mean, they can do some of it, sure,” I agreed. “But you have these ladies out there in the warehouse trying to lift weights even some men have trouble with. Trust me when I say, she can’t do that. Nor should she have to.”
“I can’t hire anyone,” she grumbled. “No one wants to work at The Mercantile.”
Romina snorted.
Candice covered her mouth with her hand to keep the laughter from spilling out.
Maybe I shouldn’t have placed this phone call on speaker. If my mom found out the entire family was listening, she’d be pissed.
Not that I cared.
I did what I wanted.
She should know better.
This was our usual pizza night.
“Well, there’s a reason for that, I’m sure.” I sighed. “Treat your employees better, and maybe your retention rate wouldn’t be so bad.”
My mother grumbled. “Will you run the forklift if she can’t?”
“No,” I said. “I’m on site because you begged and pleaded to have my butchery on the same property as you. But I’m not there for anything to do with The Mercantile. You know that I want nothing to do with it.”
“Why?” she asked.
She always asked this.
And I always gave her the same answer.
“Because I was forced to do enough child labor when I was a kid that the place literally gives me hives.”
Silence.
My mother did one of two things when she tried to manipulate you.
She talked her ass off, trying to push you into a corner until you did what she wanted. And if that didn’t work, she would go silent to make you feel bad for some bullshit, made-up or imaginary, affront that you inadvertently said or did to her.
She was exhausting, and I’d been dealing with it for my entire life.
Honestly, if it wasn’t for my dad, I’d have left this stupid town so my mother wasn’t so damn close.
She wasn’t a good mom, and I couldn’t pretend anymore.
Hence my refusal to work at The Mercantile.
My brothers and sister weren’t at that point yet, but one day they would be.
And for Harvey, that was probably closer than ever.
Mom hated Romina.
Despised her, actually.
Mom hated that Romina’s family was caring and loving and put on huge spreads every single holiday, taking away her child without meaning to.
The moment that Romina and Harvey married, my mother would lose her shit.
“Okay, good talk,” I said and hung up when she continued to stay silent.
Romina and Candice both burst out laughing when I hung up on her petty, childish antics.
“I wish Harvey had half your balls when it came to your mother,” Romina groaned.
I snorted. “Harvey has been keeping the peace for too long. He has no clue how to stand up to her, even if he wants to.”
“It’s partially Hux’s fault anyway,” Candice said. “He’s always purposefully pissing her off to keep the peace between everyone else and Vera. He’s conditioned Harvey, Heidi, and Hampton to shut their mouths.”
“True,” Hampton said unapologetically. “He can get away with things that we can’t, though.
If we tried to talk to her like he just did.
” Hampton gestured at me with his half slice of pizza.
“Then we’d have our heads torn off. She’d go to Dad and complain, and Dad would be forced to stand up for her. Then everything would go downhill.”
“Why is it, do you think, that you can get away with what the others can’t?”
Just as Candice asked that, the back door closed and Bells entered.
He walked right up to Heidi and dropped a kiss to her upturned mouth before answering Candice’s question.
“Because Hux has a devil-may-care attitude.” Bells sat down in the only empty spot between Candice and Romina and grabbed a slice of pizza.
“He doesn’t care who he pisses off, what the consequences are, and who gets caught in the crossfire.
You could all burn and he’d call it ‘acceptable cannon fodder’ and move about with his life. ”
“Hey,” I said in affront. “I love my family.”
“You love your family,” he agreed. “But if you thought it was in their best interest to burn, you’d let them.”
He had a point.
“He has a point,” Candice agreed with my inner monologue, turning to Hampton. “How many times did he start some shit with Vera and you before you got the nerve to quit and pursue firefighting?”
Hampton sighed. “That was the worst six months of our lives, though.”
“Because you’re so damn stubborn and wouldn’t fucking quit on your own due to some misguided devotion to a mother that treats you like hired help,” I grumbled.
“What happened there?” Bells asked. “And why are we on the subject of your mother? I thought we tried not to talk about her at all.”
Heidi explained about the new girl.
Bells threw his arm around her shoulders and said, “Bernice is pretty nice. I hope she can make it here. Creed seems to think that she’s going to die being here.”
“Her asthma is that bad?” I asked, unable to stop the curiosity from spilling from my mouth.
Dammit, I didn’t want to think about her at all.
“That, and she has anemia that keeps her cold all the damn time,” Bells answered. “The anemia is controlled with iron supplements and red meat. But according to Creed, she can barely tolerate the South’s winters. She’s going to die up here.”
I snorted. “No shit?”
“No shit. That’s why you’re seeing her wearing a sweatshirt with leggings and socks when the rest of us are sweating our balls off,” he said. “And apparently her asthma is bad. Everything affects it. Stress. Exercise. Allergens in the air.”
What a mess.
Maybe she shouldn’t have moved here.
“So what’s the bet that she lasts the winter?” Romina laughed.
“I’ll bet fifty that she’s gone by December first.” Heidi held up her hand. “I like her, but the weather…”
The rest of the crew made their bets, but it was me who said, “I’ll bet she sticks it out for the long haul.”
“What makes you say that?” Heidi asked.
“Because if I thought you were dead.” I leveled her with a look. “For even a day, and found out that you were in fact alive, I’d never want to let you out of my sight. Whether I was suffering or not.”