Chapter 2 #3
love that had bound them since their youth. They sometimes seemed removed even from their children, and they loved every single
one. It was just that they lived in a world of just the two of them. Even in company, they seemed to be by themselves.
All their kids had hoped for such good fortune in their own relationships. Tanner and Stasia had it, finally, after years
of tragedy and torment. Odalie and Tony might have it one day, if their years of antagonism ever boiled over into deathless
love and marriage.
But John had lost out. He’d always loved Stasia.
But she loved Tanner. She never wavered.
Once, he’d tried going off in another direction toward Maddie Lane Brannt.
But that had been a lukewarm relationship, even before Cort Brannt set his sights on her and married her.
He and Cort were still best friends, who often played video games together.
Now that Cort and Maddie had kids, however, there wasn’t a lot of time for those pursuits.
He was at the ranch before he realized it. He was surprised that it had been such a short drive. Of course, his mind had been
so busy that he hadn’t paid much attention to the way home.
“Did you get her situated?” Heather asked, smiling, when he came in the door.
He tossed his hat onto the coat tree and sat down on the sofa. “I did. I should have called the sheriff and turned her in,”
he added.
She sat on the arm of the sofa. “She didn’t seem like an evil person.”
He chuckled. “Mom,” he said with real affection, “you could find one nice thing to say about the devil himself.”
She sighed. “Probably so. But my instincts are rarely wrong, you know,” she added.
That was true. She had an uncanny ability to judge people. John had inherited her odd sense of foreboding, of sensing trouble
coming, as well as her instincts about people. He hadn’t felt any tingling when the girl was in the truck with him. None at
all.
“Where is she staying?” Heather asked.
“In a motel in Percell.” He laughed. “She said she wasn’t sure I’d know where Percell was. It’s not exactly New York City,”
he chuckled.
“Yes.” She frowned, deep in thought.
“What?” he asked, watching her expression.
“I have the oddest hunch that I’ve seen her before.”
“That’s hardly likely.”
She laughed self-consciously. “It is, isn’t it? I met so many people in the old days, when I was performing onstage.” She
hesitated. “I was at the Grammy Awards twice, with your father. Perhaps I met her there.”
“At the Grammys?” he exclaimed.
She realized how absurd that sounded and started laughing. She got up. “Oh, Mercedes says if you want your linen changed again, ever, you’d better come up with some idea for a curtain around your new pet.”
“Wimp.”
“Not everybody thinks rattlesnakes make good pets,” she pointed out.
“I did notice the padlock,” John said with a speaking glance.
“Listen, I’m not sleeping down the hall from an animal that can get out of a cage. And don’t tell me I’m overreacting,” she
interrupted when he opened his mouth.
“Or don’t you remember the night your albino python got loose and Cole and I woke up in bed with him?”
“I remember the screaming,” he had to admit.
“You were so lucky that your father couldn’t find his box of shotgun shells. He was really looking hard,” she added.
He grimaced. “You know Dad likes to sleep like polar bears, summer or winter. The poor snake was just trying to get warm,
and you and Dad were the only sources of heat in the room.”
“Where he shouldn’t have been in the first place!”
He held up both arms. “Guilty, as charged. I did get a new lid for his cage,” he reminded her. “One with a good lock.”
“And just in time, too.”
He sighed. “Odalie and I had such fun terrorizing ranch hands with Charlie,” he recalled with a smile. “He was really laid-back
for a snake his size.”
“Stasia’s boss, Tony Garza, has one just like him. Have you seen it?”
“No! Really?”
She nodded. “He lives at the Long Island house. Next time you visit your sister, ask Tony to take you out there. His snake
lives in a room they call the jungle, because it’s full of exotic plants and grow lights. Stasia says it’s gorgeous.”
“I’d love to see him.”
“I think they’re going to be really happy together one day. Tony and Odalie I mean. They’re enemies right now, though. I was
worried once, because of Tony’s reputation as a former mob boss. But, you know, we would never have gotten Tanner back alive
if it hadn’t been for Tony.”
“He strikes fear in the heart of a lot of people. Especially that scalawag in DC who’s still going free after killing all
those innocents in Iraq.”
“I’d like to see him in front of a congressional committee, too, but he heads one of the premier black ops agencies and makes
them lots of money doing it,” Heather said. “He stays free because he’s got something on everybody and threatens to use it.”
“Yes, but Tony’s got something on him,” John said with a smug smile. “Tanner says it’s just a matter of time before the right
people are willing to tackle him. Tanner says he’ll go to DC and testify. He was one of two eyewitnesses, which was why Phillip
James tried to have him killed. But at the time, Tanner was the only one. Now Tony’s found at least one other witness who’ll
testify, and an acquaintance of Tony’s who works for the US Marshals Service is trying to help find another one. Things are
looking up.”
“Yes, they are,” Heather said. Her pretty pale blue eyes narrowed. “That girl who was here, you know, you very rarely see
people with hair like hers. Red-gold.”
“It could have come out of a bottle,” John commented.
“I don’t think so. She had freckles, did you notice?”
His chin lifted. “Probably painted on,” he huffed.
She laughed. “Lost cause.”
He wrinkled his nose and smiled. He got up. “Where’s Dad?”
“Down at the stable. That new Arabian he bought was just delivered.”
“The white one?”
“There was only one he was willing to bid on,” Heather reminded him.
“It was the most beautiful stallion I’ve ever seen in my life,” John replied. “And Dad had to outbid ten other men who wanted
it just as much.”
“You’ll still be paying him off after your father and I are dead and gone,” she pointed out.
“I won’t complain,” he promised. “Besides, this new real estate enterprise I’m working on will pay him off, with money to
burn. I promise.”
She reached up and kissed his chin, which was as far as she could reach. “I knew you’d turn into a businessman one day, despite
what your father predicted.”
“Oh? What did he predict?”
“That you’d end badly in some second-rate ball club until your knees blew out.”
His eyes widened. “Dad said that?”
“Well, you were twelve at the time, and you’d just decided that you wanted to pursue a life as a professional baseball player,”
she told him. She grinned. “But I knew better. After all, my darling, you’re your father’s son.”
He chuckled. “That, I am.”