Chapter 11 – Juliette
ELEVEN
JULIETTE
“Truck’s coming up the drive,” I announced.
Creed had his head buried in the chicken coop. A coyote had tried to get into it last night. He’d had to chase it away and now he was looking for potential weaknesses.
I had to give it to him, the man was fucking diligent when it came to protecting his investment. All of it. Even the chickens were under his personal protection and no outside force was going to hurt them.
Not even the ones Mother Nature offered up.
So it wasn’t unusual that he missed something as obvious as the sound of an engine coming our way. Even though that only happened once a week when USPS decided to grace us with our mail.
We never had gotten many visitors out to the farm, and that hadn’t changed at all after Herb’s death.
“Creed!” I called out to him, until he finally picked his head up.
He wore his typical jeans, t-shirt, and boots combination, but at least he’d gotten into the habit of covering his head with a ball cap every time he was outside now. I’d insisted. When the sun was high it could get scorching in June.
I pointed to the truck that was moving at high speed down the access road that ran toward the house.
“I’m guessing that’s your friend,” I said, with a shrug.
His letter back to Creed had said a few days, but there had been no set date.
But I suppose today was the day, which meant I was staying in Creed’s bedroom tonight.
I tried not to think about that too hard.
In the end, what were a couple of nights with a guy who fucking walked in his sleep like a silent killer?
Should I tuck a knife under my pillow?
Creed made his way over to me on the edge of the fields and together we started making our way back to the house.
“You remember our agreement?” he said to me, quietly.
“Motherfucker, I made this asshole rhubarb pie. You’re going to owe me when this is over.”
“What do you want?”
“My freedom and half the value of this property,” I said, instantly. That’s all I ever wanted.
“What else do you want?”
I glanced over at him and realized he was serious. He wanted to give me…a thank you gift. When he’d already given me a phone. Although he was right, that was just practical. A way for us to communicate when I went into town to pick up shit.
Now he could text me exactly what freaking brand of laundry detergent he liked so the smell wouldn’t be too flowery. Whatever the fuck that meant.
However, this gift could be something I wanted. Something frivolous.
I couldn’t remember the last time I wanted anything. Because wanting and knowing you couldn’t have it was pointless. It had been so long I couldn’t wrap my brain around it.
Something for the house? No. That would only benefit him, too.
New clothes? Silly, when it was just us two out here.
No, I needed to ask for something of value. A way to take back more of what was mine. Unfortunately, I’d already told him I didn’t do jewelry. A gold bar?
That seemed unlikely.
Maybe I was thinking about this wrong. Maybe I didn’t need a thing, but instead, more access to what was mine.
“The login and password to our bank account.”
He tilted his head back and laughed.
“I wasn’t being funny,” I grumbled.
“I know. How about I give you another orgasm? You liked your last one, I can do that again if you want. Maybe even two. Back to back.”
“Uh, no thanks. I can do without.”
And I had. Even though there had been several nights when I’d tried on my own again, because damn, that had felt good. Apparently, orgasms weren’t an automatic thing.
“Well, you think of something within reason and I’ll oblige you. If this visit goes well.”’
We’d reached the front porch of the house by the time the truck, a rental given how shiny and new it looked, pulled up to a stop next to ours.
Then the second largest man I’d ever seen, next to Creed, got out behind the driver’s side.
He was wearing camos, military boots, and a green t-shirt. He had a white cowboy hat perched on his head and a beard so full, I could barely make out his face.
When he saw us standing there waiting for him, he arched his back, looked up to the sky and shouted “Chief!”
So loud and deep I could hear the chickens in the coop startle. Just like they had when they saw the coyote.
Creed nodded once.
Then the man approached us, his arms wide open.
It was funny, too, because I didn’t see Creed as a hugger.
But the two men did that thing where they slapped on each other’s backs so hard you might have thought they were trying to hurt each other.
“My brother,” Tank said, as he pulled away. “Fuck, man, you shaved your beard.”
“I was done with it,” Creed said.
Tank looked at him then, as if trying to asses him. “You are one ugly motherfucker, you know that?”
I couldn’t help it. I snorted. That probably wasn’t a very wifely sentiment, but it was true.
“A face only a woman in love could tolerate,” Tank said, turning his attention to me. “Tank Ferrell,” he said, stretching his hand toward me.
I accepted his shake, but holy moly did his hand swallow mine up and over my wrist.
“Juliette Clarke…uh, sorry. O’Mara. Still new to me.”
“I bet. I bet,” Tank said. “So what did this sonofabitch do to get you to marry him, you pretty little thing?”
“I bought her,” Creed said. “For fifty K.”
Tank tilted his head back and laughed like that was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.
It was time to play my role.
I wrapped my arm around Creed’s back and with my other hand patted his stomach while I leaned into his chest. “Oh honey, stop telling people that joke. The truth is, as soon as I looked into those dark, sharklike eyes of his, I was hooked.”
Tank laughed again even as Creed gave me a little warning squeeze.
“Come on inside,” I said. “I’ll show you to your room and let you get settled in.”
Tank walked back to his truck and pulled out his duffle bag, which I noted wasn’t overly full. So maybe this would just be a short visit. Then he pulled out a cardboard box, which I quickly realized was filled with bottles of booze. Like, six of them.
“Let’s get this party going!” he shouted.
Party indeed, I thought.
Tank was drunk. As a skunk. I’d fed him a roasted chicken, as many mashed potatoes as I thought a human could eat and half a rhubarb pie. It still didn’t matter.
He’d left the politeness of a glass behind about an hour ago and now we were sitting in my daddy’s living room, where a speck of alcohol never did cross his lips, and Tank had a whiskey bottle in one hand, while his stocking feet stretched out on the coffee table in front of him.
Creed and I sat next to each other on the old couch, (he’d ordered the new one but it wouldn’t be delivered for another few weeks), across from my dad’s old recliner.
While Creed was drinking, he wasn’t Tank drinking.
Maybe he was doing that for me? So I wouldn’t worry about what a drunk Creed might get up to in the middle of the night. Or maybe, he was thinking that someone was going to have to haul this drunk beast up to this bed.
“You know Eagle opted out?” Tank asked Creed.
He shook his head. “Hadn’t heard. Haven’t heard much of anything, really.”
I didn’t pay attention to the conversation as I was scrolling on my phone. My allotted time was running out and I had no clue what I was going to do then. Maybe Creed would let me head to bed early. That wasn’t rude, was it? They probably had deeper shit they wanted to talk about.
“So how did you two meet?” Tank asked, taking another long draw on his bottle. “She-eet, I love a good meet-cute.”
“I was in Riverbend looking to buy a horse,” Creed said. “We met and started dating. We have the same outlook on things and marriage suited us.”
Props to me for not coughing bullshit into my fist.
It was unlikely Tank would meet anyone in town or talk to them about Creed, so I wasn’t worried about our stories not matching.
What I was worried about was the way Tank kept looking around the house and telling Creed what a lucky sonofabitch he was to have just fallen into all this prime shit.
Not once. Not twice. Like six or seven times.
“Damn, Chief,” he said, his voice a little slurry as he repeated himself. Again. “You got some land, a house. Some fine pussy-”
Creed instantly shot to his feet and was across the room, taking the bottle out of his friend’s hand.
“That’s enough.”
Tank raised his hands in surrender. “Dude, chill out. I was just fucking complimenting you.”
“No, I don’t think I will chill out,” he looked over his shoulder at me and lifted his chin. “Go to bed. I’ll be in a little later.”
I nodded and got off the couch. Strategic retreat before things got out of hand sounded like a good idea to me.
“Night, Tank,” I said sweetly, as I walked by him. “Nice to meet a friend of Creed’s.”
That sounded wifely, I thought. Then I got out of Dodge before Tank made any more comments related to my pussy.
I changed quickly into the least sexy pajamas I could think of. Baggy shorts, a sports bra, because I wasn’t going commando, and a long sleeved, oversized t-shirt I’d pulled out of Creed’s closet that wouldn’t show any skin.
My clothes went into the hamper he kept inside the adjacent bathroom and I stared back at the spacious room with the king sized bed. I could get into it for now, then just move when I heard Creed come to bed.
But, what if I fell asleep?
No, the safe option was to just set up camp on the floor now. There was plenty of room on the other side of the room, between the closet and the bed. I pulled the duvet off and one pillow. He only had two.
Who only had two pillows on a king sized bed? My twin upstairs had four of varying sizes, depending on my mood.
I laid the blanket out on the large woven rug that didn’t quite cover the hardwood floor. Doubled it up to give me some cushion. Then crashed on the floor, my head on the pillow and the top part of the duvet thrown on top of me as a blanket.
I’d slept in worse situations. There had been a period of time in my early teens, years after my mom left us, where I started to understand Herb’s nature and thought I needed to run away.
No fewer than three times, I’d gotten as far as about thirty miles away from the farm. Far enough that I had to camp overnight. Once, I’d been able to dodge him for two nights. But he always sent the sheriff out for me, and, well… I was never as determined as I needed to be.
The one time I’d made it as far as the highway, a trucker had pulled over to the side of the road and asked me where I was going.
I’d told him my dad was coming to pick me up and he drove off.
That could have ended badly, but it didn’t.
There were times I used to wonder what might have happened if I’d gotten in that trucker’s cab. But things just weren’t that bad at home where I’d felt I needed to take the risk.
Me running away was more of a statement. So Herb would know I was not happy with the current situation. Usually after I did it, I would get grounded to my room for a few weeks, but then after that he might let me get a library card.
Always a little give and take.
It was weird, but this was the first time I’d been back in this room since he’d died.
Maybe I should have been more creeped out, but I knew the mattress was new and Creed did a pretty good job of keeping his space clean, so it wasn’t like I could smell the stench of sick under the sheen of morphine anymore.
After a few minutes of listening with half an ear to see if Tank was going to be a belligerent drunk, I fell asleep.