Chapter 21 #3
The parking lot was filling up, but he’d called in their order. All he had to do was pick it up. He parked near the highway, making it easier to drive away, and then entered the café.
The immediate absence of wind was a relief. A couple was headed to the door, so he stopped to open the door for them, then closed it behind them.
But before he could walk across the room to the pickup station at the register, he heard someone call out his name.
“Look who’s here! It’s Gunner Kingston. Hey, Gunner! How you likin’ your castle on the hill?”
Gunner turned, gazing out across the room full of customers who, sensing an oncoming conflict, had now stopped their own meals and conversations. His expression was unreadable, and he had yet to respond.
“What? Don’t you recognize your old friends anymore? It’s me, Dave Randall.”
“I don’t remember calling you friend,” Gunner said and kept walking toward the front register.
Randall shoved his chair back and stood up, as if itching for a fight.
“We see you slinging money around for that big house. Your daddy’s fancying up his place. You’re building your wife an apartment building to run. How you doin’ all that, boy? Maybe you dug up some more money Brenda Kingston buried and forgot to mention it to the Feds.”
He was immediately bombarded with angry comments from locals, calling him a drunk and telling him to sit down and that he was making an ass of himself.
But when Pearl came flying out of the kitchen with her shotgun, everybody sitting behind Randall got up and moved to the other side of the room.
“It’s okay, Pearl. No need to shoot his ass and mess up the dining room.
I’ve got this,” Gunner said, and then he made an announcement to the whole room.
“Not that it’s ever been anybody’s damn business, but I have money.
I have a whole hell of a lot of it now, because one morning on my way to work, I stopped at a Gas and Dash in Dallas to refuel.
I also went inside and bought a candy bar and a bottle of pop, and on a whim, a lottery ticket. ”
Now the whole room was silent, and Dave Randall’s belly was rolling, and he was wishing he hadn’t ordered cheese on his fries, and Gunner was still talking.
“I went to work, then went home, went to bed, and went to work the next day just like every day, cleaning up the messes people make with their lives. And when I went to bed that second night, I was lying there watching TV when they began calling out the lottery numbers for that Mega Millions jackpot. And, because I’d bought that random ticket, I got it out of my wallet and glanced at it.
To my eternal shock, every damn number they called was on the ticket I had in my hands.
That night, I won just shy of eight hundred million dollars, and I was afraid to go to sleep.
The next day I picked up my lawyer, and we went to the Dallas Claims Center of the Texas Lottery Commission to verify my winning number and agreed to a cash payout of a little over half.
So, no, you sorry bastard, I did not dig up anybody’s stolen money.
The apartment in Crossroads will help this town grow.
That’s for all of us. Not for me. And I gave my dad money because I wanted to.
The addition that Jacob Kingston is building onto his house is because he likes to have his freakin’ family home for the holidays, and there isn’t room enough anymore.
You are a son of a bitch for even mentioning his name in such a derogatory way.
And if I ever hear you denigrate my father’s name by mentioning him and Brenda Kingston in the same breath, I will beat your ass clean into the dirt.
And just for the record to everybody listening, I am not your next available ATM.
You need to borrow money, Dale Curry and Fred Wilson are the men you go to.
Not me or my wife. Understood?” Then he went to the register to pick up his to-go order, handed a waitress the money to pay for it, and hugged Pearl.
“Thank you for the food, Mama Pearl. Love you, but put up the gun.”
She took his kiss on her cheek, glared at the whole room as he walked out, and then shouted. “Sit. Finish your food. Dave Randall will be leaving now.”
Dave wasn’t finished with his food, but he did not have enough guts left to even open his mouth, let alone argue or chew. He threw some money on the table and walked out with his head down.
By nightfall, everyone in Crossroads and beyond knew about Gunner’s windfall, but they also knew him well enough to know he meant what he said.
* * *
The Tumbleweed was nearly empty at noon. By the time Gunner got back to the bar, Pearl had already called Jacob and told him what happened. When they sat down at a table usually reserved for domino games and began to eat, Jacob started the conversation.
“I sure like having you around. Between you and Pearl, I might start feeling like I was somebody,” he said.
“And for the record, Pearl called, I guess the second you walked out the door. Dave Randall is an ass. He lives in Tulia now, but I’d bet money you won’t see him around Crossroads anymore. Pearl sent him packing.”
Gunner dipped a french fry in his dad’s ketchup, then grinned. “She pulled out the shotgun on him.”
Jacob shook his head. “You’d think by now, all the locals would know better.” And then he smiled. “But she sure is a dandy, isn’t she?”
Gunner laughed. “She’s that, and then some.”
“Where’s Holly at today?” Jacob asked.
“She went to the ranch to have lunch with Trudy. I suspect she’ll hear all about the lottery revelation before she makes it home. Gossip has a way of traveling, but her family already knew. I told Garrett the day we came home.”
Jacob nodded and pointed to the pickle on the side of Gunner’s plate. “You plan on eatin’ that?”
“Help yourself,” Gunner said and sat listening to his dad’s bar stories as he ate, like they were the fairy tales he told Gunner when he was little. All the years Jacob had put into making sure his smallest son still knew he was loved had not been in vain.
* * *
Gunner was right when he said Holly would find out, because she had.
They’d talked about this a dozen times in the past few months, and now it had happened, she couldn’t help thinking it was like peeling off a scab.
Maybe it was time. She didn’t know how she was going to be received now, but she’d soon find out, because she was going to Belker’s for groceries before she went home.
A short while later she pulled into the parking lot.
After a quick check in her purse to make sure she had her list, she went inside, grabbed a shopping cart and headed for the produce aisle, began gathering up what she needed there, then moved to the bread aisle.
She was debating about sourdough or a loaf of plain bread when someone tapped her on the shoulder.
It was the little nurse who’d caught her bridal bouquet.
“Hey, Holly, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Wendy Jennings.”
Holly grinned. “The bridal bouquet! You caught it! Did it work?” she asked.
Wendy giggled. “Prospects abound, but nothing yet. I was wondering when you were going to start taking applications for the new apartments because I want to apply. I’m living out in the country with an aunt and uncle, and the drive back and forth is hard on my budget.”
“Oh… I totally understand. I think we’re less than a month from completion, and you’re the first one who’s asked, so your name will be at the top of the list. We’ll have an open house, but if the apartment and the price suit you, you have first pick.
Up or down. They’re all two bedrooms, one bath.
All appliances furnished. Utilities are on the renters. ”
“Oh my God… Thank you,” Wendy said and handed her a card with her contact info. “I need to hurry. Aunt Pam is waiting for me and these groceries.”
Holly dropped the card in her purse and finished shopping.
But her chance meeting with Wendy had been witnessed by other shoppers, and they were elated to know there would be an open house.
Everyone wanted to see the latest addition to their little town, and nobody seemed inclined to exhibit jealousy to the man who’d foiled a bank robbery, or his wife, who’d just lost her mother in such a tragic way.
* * *
Gunner was still at the bar with his dad when he glanced at the time, then checked the travel app to see if Holly was still at the ranch. When he realized she was already back in town and at the supermarket, he knew it was time to head home.
“Hey, Dad, I’m going home. Holly is at the supermarket, and I’m the bag boy at our house.”
Jacob grinned. “You’re learning your place early, boy. Good for you.”
Gunner was smiling as he drove away. He already knew his place. Right by her side. He beat her to the house, but not by much. He backed up into the garage and was getting out when he saw her SUV coming up the road, so he waited.
Holly started smiling the moment she saw him. She pulled into the garage, parked, and killed the engine as he opened the door to help her out. Moments later she was in his arms.
“I missed you. I had lunch with Dad. Did you and Trudy have a good visit?”
She cupped his face and kissed him just enough to let him know she missed him, too.
“We had the best time. I helped her make pie crusts to put in the freezer. She said Travis comes home from college about once a month, shops for his groceries in her pantry, and takes as many desserts as he can back to college with him. Dad thinks Travis is likely selling them for big bucks.”
Gunner laughed. “A budding entrepreneur. That’s priceless. I’ll get the grocery bags, you get the door, okay?”
“With thanks,” she said and closed the garage door as she opened the one into the house, then waited for him to pass through.
“It feels so good to be home. The wind is exhausting just to listen to, and our house really buffers that sound.”
Gunner was emptying the bags, and she was putting up the purchases when she paused and turned around.
“I heard enough about Dave Randall’s asinine behavior to know Pearl pulled the shotgun off the wall,” she said.
Gunner shrugged. “We knew the lottery thing would eventually come out, but I never thought about it happening like that.”
She pulled a barstool up to the island and sat. “Tell me.”
“He was drunk and itching for a fight. Everything he said was a challenge, trying to make me respond. And then he suggested that all this money being spent came from me digging up more stolen money that Brenda Kingston buried, and that since we built the house, and the apartment building, and Dad is adding on to his place, that the Kingstons might have held some back for their own purposes.”
Holly groaned. “Oh my God. I didn’t hear all that. Gunner… Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
“So is Randall, now. Between realizing what a jerk he was, and Pearl coming out with the shotgun, he was wishing he’d never opened his mouth.
I also made it clear that if there’s any money being borrowed in Crossroads, I am not an ATM, and it will be happening at the bank, then I got Dad’s lunch and left. ”
She frowned. “What can I do to take away your mad face?”
The corner of his mouth turned up just a little. “Do you have to ask?”
She slid off the barstool and started toward their bedroom, but Gunner caught up, swept her off her feet, and carried her the rest of the way.
They were still making love on that bed when the sun began to set. They fell asleep in each other’s arms and woke up a couple of hours later to a house in total darkness.
“Did we finish putting up the groceries?” Holly asked.
“Hell if I know, darlin’, but we can put some clothes on and find out.”
“I’m kinda hungry, too,” Holly said.
He turned on a lamp by their bed. “First one to the kitchen is first one to the kitchen,” he said.
Holly burst out laughing and rolled out of bed.