Chapter 37 Montana
montana
. . .
Didn’t realize how loud my boots were until the hangar spat the echo back at me. As I crouched behind a rusted oil tank, I set eyes on Edwin. What in the hell was my bébé thinking?
Darius shielded most of his body, bound and seated on an old computer chair cranked to the highest height in front of him. My son—my boy—clutched Brody like it could roar us outta this mess dude had caused.
Every part of me wanted to move. But I needed an opening. And Zuri kept shifting in and outta my way. Worked my way to the left, every muscle coiled in rage, ready to strike from behind. Just needed to get around her.
From the distance, I hardly heard them, but my eyes bugged when Darius screamed. “My daddy better than you!”
Edwin raised the gun.
The shot cracked the hangar.
The toy’s head exploded into a puff of stuffing.
Darius screamed—high, panicked—fighting the man’s hold on his arm even though the bullet never touched him. I felt that scream in my bones. I’d claimed him long before I admitted it. My son.
Edwin swung the gun at Zuri.
I didn’t even take a breath. I moved, shoulder slamming Zuri from the side.
As he took the shot, I traded one of my own.
The moment the bullet tore into my arm, I realized Ezekiel had done the same for me once.
We’d been hunting gators in the bayou back then.
Just us two. Until I’d forced Wash to go.
Had to show off. Ezekiel saved my life with a crack shot—killing that gator.
But this time wasn’t a hunt. Edwin’s bullet found me somewhere that didn’t matter—my nondominant arm. Mine found the space between his eyes.
When I woke up, those lights had me thinking I done crossed over. I squeezed my eyes shut again. No way heaven got this many heart monitor beeps and whispered side conversations.
“He’s awake,” Zuri murmured, her voice thick with emotion as she came to my side, eyes red-rimmed. Momma flanked my other side, and I glanced around at my brothers.
“Tex, you made it?”
“You know me.” Texas shrugged.
Please. He didn’t miss free food, and he wasn’t there last night. But I let it rest, since Tennessee sat at his side, a disappointed dad at a parent-teacher conference. Either he was gonna light up Texas or harp about me not waiting at the hangar.
My left arm was as numb as a streetcar conductor after Fat Tuesday and encased in a cast. “You gone give me my status, Doctor Sweet Cheeks?” I chuckled. “Will I live?”
Her eyes rolled. “Excuse me, I’m nearly a Babineaux.”
“She’s on to something there.” Washington nodded. “I was just telling Zuri, the Feds cleared her. Took them a couple weeks, but they also confirmed what this other one suspected—”
“Run that back, bébé.” Texas grinned wide. “Add some diaphragm in it. Some seasoning.”
Tennessee nudged his twin so hard, he nearly swallowed his ego.
Washington didn’t pay him no mind. “The perp shaking down Dr. Heine—now on the Fed’s Most Wanted List—wasn’t following cartel orders.”
“Like. I. Said!” Texas channeled Denzel Washington in Training Day. Too damn loud, and too damn proud.
But at Washington’s mention of the FBI’s Most Wanted, me and Zuri swapped a glance. I hoped the trash mounds in Queens treated dude like family. Let the seagulls eat.
Washington said, “The perp cooked the books. What Heine owed him was more than the cartel realized. And he kept bleeding Heine too.”
Before explaining about my exit wound, Zuri held my IV’d hand and gently kissed my forehead. She then asked, “I guess … I just want to know if you’ll stick around NOLA?” She scrubbed a hand through her locs as if nervous. Woman almost had me ready to turn around and see what was behind me.
Her nervous?
Not acceptable, she was marrying a man with too much identity for that.
Momma strolled out into the hallway, and Zuri whispered, “I’ll nurse you back to health. Let’s go to Arizona next Friday?”
“Chère, we going to Arizona today! I’ma need my back rubs. Besides, I gotta show my son how real men step up to bat.” I pushed a button. The railing descended, and I got up.
“NO!” The twins shoved me and my busted arm back into the bed. In creepy twin harmony, they hollered, “The only ass we tryna see—”
“Better be your own, ya gremlins.” Auntie Peaches slid into the room, her smile messier than my wildest parties as Big Country.
“With the way y’all momma rolls,” she said, glancing out of the open door for her sister, “I don’t know how y’all boys didn’t pop up after one of my wild nights on Frenchmen Street. ”
“Um …” Zuri said, “can you tell us how the kids are doing?”
“Just fell asleep. Them crumb-snatchers snatched the last of the king cake.”
“Where’s Genèse?” I asked while giving Zuri a told-you wink.
“She and her husband are lying Thumbs up, Seven Up on a table inside the tent. Ain’t the only ones, either.”
“Heads Up, Seven Up,” Zuri quietly corrected.
“Sugah, if it ain’t my Sock It to Me, 7Up cake, I don’t give a damn.”
“Listen”—my voice was smoother than jazz on Royal Street—“now that Zuri’s seen the hospital she’s gonna give me babies at, y’all gotta bounce. So, she can sock it to me, you feel me?”
Momma strolled into the room with extra blankets and clutched them tighter than pearls. “Montana!”
Auntie Peaches chuckled. “Sis, let the boy practice his dad jokes.”
My index finger shot to the door like a brass trumpet cue. “You ain’t gotta go home but get to stepping!”
Everyone left but Washington. The judge stood and handed me a business card with the FBI emblem.
“A special agent wants to speak with you. Basically, you just need to corroborate what Zuri, Ten, and I have already told him. Crime scene techs have nearly cleared the hangar. But they’ll want to hear your statement. ”
“Good looking out.”
He nodded but remained motionless. The stiffness of his shoulders betrayed the thoughts that occupied his mind. It could wait. My brow rose. “Big brotha, you ain’t no exception.”
“I need a copy of your security footage,” Washington said, voice flatter than a burned beignet. “Maddy vandalized my Bentley during the party. Put her whole back into it. Even keyed STALKER into the doors like she was signing a Mardi Gras float.”
That’s why he changed his mind about driving to the hangar?
Looking all apologetic, Zuri handed him my phone from a personal belongings bag, and I showed him the app. I cut a hand near my throat as Zuri began to apologize. We could deal with that later. I just saved her life. And proposed. She owed me.
“Thanks,” Washington said, his voice a low growl, before he disappeared.
And then it happened. I was alone with the most gorgeous woman ever.
Zuri reached for her purse. “I should call, Mad—”
“C’mere, Zuri”—my chin jutted—“give Big Country some sugar, before we head to spring training, chère.”
She rolled her eyes but leaned in anyway, pressing a soft kiss to my lips. My fingers tangled into hers, and I held tight. The warmth of her made the chaos—the worry that she’d run—fade away. “Climb up,” I murmured.
“You sure you want to marry me, Montana? The Feds mentioned that I should file taxes before the IRS hits me with evasion charges. And Sallie Mae will attack the scraps.”
“Long as you don’t owe somebody named Tee-Tee or Junebug”—I feigned a shudder for effect—“then I’ll let you pay Big Country back properly.”
Her top lip curled. “Ugh, why do I get the feeling those are girls you used to mess with?”
“Hold up.” I shook my head, serious. “Tee-Tee claims we still in love. All I did was teach her to kiss in the fourth grade. Junebug is messier than Adelle.”
She laughed so hard she nearly knocked out my IV and climbed into the hospital bed.
As she snuggled on my good side, I asked, “You ready for this season?”
“Only if you’re there with me,” she whispered, eyes sparkling like the river at sunset.
She wiped back a tear of happiness. “I couldn’t dream this up, Montana.
After all the places I’ve hid, I thought it would always be just Darius and me.
You arrived in my life, bravado and arrogance,”—she playfully swatted my chest—“trapped me here in NOLA. Where I have to eat good food for the rest of my life.”
“I’ma eat good too,” I said, savoring the taste of her lips.
She giggled, tears welling, then tenderly deepened the kiss, our tongues exploring each other with affection. “Mmmm, Montana. You better love me forever because Tee-Tee’s obsession is nothing compared to my devotion.”
“Promise.” I kissed her one last time. I needed it to always feel like the last time because I never wanted to take for granted that this woman had stayed. For me.
I poured every ounce of love into the moment. Tasted laughter and home. “You right, chère, some other women might’ve chased me, but around these parts, I caught you. And I ain’t even gonna let go.”
THE END.