Chapter 12 Marker Paid #2
Hutch blew out a sigh and decided it was a bourbon night.
“What?” he asked.
“Turns out, she was Frank Groove’s biological kid.
Man was loaded, all this went down, he let her swing.
Until he died recently, with a lot of his fortune used up in legal fees and just from blowing it by partying, still, he had some money, and that mansion.
Mabel only learned he was her father after he died, because she inherited it all. ”
Hutch steadfastly ignored the chill that swept over his skin at the familiar feeling of this story and instead focused on the fact this was good for Mabel.
But bad if Lars Enstrom ever heard of it.
Lee kept going.
“She instructed the executors to liquidate everything, and after his debts were paid, death duties, attorneys’ fees, she walked away with a little over a million dollars.”
“That guy was known as a hitmaker,” Hutch noted. “And that was all he died with?”
“That’s it. He owed everybody, including a bank who held his hefty home equity loan. But at least she’s got a healthy safety net, not to mention, his royalties and residuals.”
“Or a huge chunk of money some fucked-in-the-head asshole who trusses his women up in Little House on the Prairie dresses, without the flower prints, and puts them to work making pies can get his hands on through brainwashing.” He couldn’t imagine Mabel would ever fall to that. “Or intimidation.”
“Maybe you need to sit on her,” Lee suggested.
This idea held merit.
The thing was, the more he was around her, the closer he came to caving.
He’d learned his lesson with Bree.
At least he hadn’t loved her like he had the other two.
But fuck, the woman put him through four months of hell.
It was always good in the beginning.
Until it turned bad.
That said, Mabel could move house. Duck out of their line of sight. Find a place in town that was populated.
But that felt shit, Mabel having to do something as major as that when she should be able to live free.
However, she had a shop. She had to have made friends in the area.
She couldn’t just disappear from that cabin.
Someone would go looking.
Namely…Hutch.
“Handle her with care,” Lee warned.
He hadn’t been doing that, not even slightly.
The thing was, he just learned what her life had been, and she was sassing him and strutting around in her sweet jeans, shirts, sweaters, silver and boots, baking sourdough bread.
Jesus.
His chest started hurting so bad, he had to rub it.
“You need me to send Vance up there to put up some surveillance?” Lee offered.
This wasn’t a bad idea.
Hutch talked it out. “It’s been over a week, and they’ve left her alone.
She got a note, their indictment on something she did.
But they haven’t approached since. Even so, she reported it, and you know how things are around here.
So my guess is, you know our sheriff isn’t sitting on his hands when he might have another problem that might blow up in the town’s face. ”
“You decide differently, you call. For Mabel Adams, it’ll be a freebie.”
Lee was a soft touch when it came to women in general, and women in peril, specifically.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good she’s got you close.”
“Yeah.”
“I got no more, brother, but I’ll repeat, I can do something, call on me.”
“Thanks, Lee.”
“Marker paid,” Lee said.
And he hung up.
Hutch headed to the bourbon.
Once he poured it, he threw some back and turned to take in his kitchen.
Before he got out of the Navy, he’d already decided what he was going to do when the Navy was no longer his life. He also decided where he was going to be.
As far away from anybody as he could be.
He’d never been a crowd person. He’d always been a loner. His father had been shocked when he’d enlisted, because to enlist, you gotta know how to work on a team. And not like sports. Doing it day in, day out, moment to moment.
It wasn’t that Hutch didn’t like people, he just didn’t like a lot of them all at once.
He could deal.
It wasn’t a choice.
It wasn’t a phobia.
It was a preference.
And he didn’t need much of anything.
Outside of putting up the pens, after he moved in, he hadn’t changed a thing about this property. He got the furniture he needed, nothing more.
Bree had given him endless shit about it.
Your kitchen is god-awful. You need a new one.
You need a TV. Not having a TV is just crazy.
Would it kill you to hang a picture on the wall, Hutch?
She hadn’t been the first with all that noise.
But she had been the last.
Not one woman he’d been remotely serious about wanted him just for him.
Change this.
Niggle that.
Get out of the Navy so you’re home more.
Work harder. Kiss ass. Go for that promotion.
Be someone else.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to compromise.
He did.
He just refused to compromise on the core of him being anything but who he was.
He didn’t know if his old range could bake a loaf of sourdough bread.
What he did know was that every woman who walked over his threshold saw his home as a huge waving red flag, sharing he was not a keeper.
This was not his plan, but it worked for him anyway.
He hated television. There was nothing worthwhile on it. It was a time suck and a mind fuck.
He didn’t give a fuck about paintings on the wall.
But if there was a single woman in this world who could handle him as he was, she could do whatever the fuck she wanted. He’d help. He’d pay. And if it made her happy, he’d be glad to do it.
He wouldn’t like it, but he’d even mount a TV.
But that first part was impossible to find.
Since it happened, he’d refused to think about it, but learning everything about Mabel, it surfaced.
I’m impressed.
Another thing Bree rode his ass about?
Live a little, Hutch. What’s an ice cream cone gonna hurt? It’s like you’re no fun.
He closed his eyes thinking about ice cream and expended the effort it took to shake that off.
Then Mabel’s words returned.
I’m impressed.
He opened his eyes.
Not, Take it. Eat it. It won’t kill you. I worked hard on baking that bread.
But, I’m impressed.
He knew, as much as it wrecked him to be a part of that tribe, too many of the male population were dicks, douchebags, cheaters, losers, red pills, Peter Pans or straight up motherfuckers.
But some men were just the men they were. Maybe too complicated. Maybe too simple. Maybe fucked up, and they needed to be seen.
Hutch was all of those.
He just hadn’t met a woman who was patient enough with any of them.
He remembered a woman he’d been seeing for three months when he was still in the Navy. He was falling for her. It was time.
So he started to tell her his history.
She’d laughed.
Right in his face, she’d laughed.
When she saw he was pissed, she said, “Come on, Hutch. You gotta admit it’s funny. You have to laugh at these kinds of things.”
He could not imagine a human in the world who would hear what he’d just told her and find it even vaguely funny.
He’d broken up with her that night to her tears and tantrums, but he did it thankful he hadn’t given her the whole story.
Now he had Mabel, who pulled up the inherent protective instinct that sent him to enlist in the Navy. That pushed him to go for SEAL training. That underlined the work he did with his pups.
And he had Mabel, who’d lived the life she lived, which was indisputably worse than his—even if his was a tangled mess that never got straightened out, any chance of that ending tragically with a shotgun shell—and the woman made sourdough bread, refused to crate a dog who’d been in a shelter, got a creepy note from her creepier neighbors, and kept on going.
On that thought, Hutch put his glass down, went out to see to the second feeding, made sure there was plenty of fresh water, came back in and poured another bourbon.
He took his glass to his living room, got his guitar, sipped, strummed, and found himself writing another song in his head.
And fuck him sideways, it was about Mabel.
It wasn’t until much later, while he was on his back in bed, his dog on the floor at his side, snoring, that three thoughts occurred to him.
The first, he needed a camera with an extreme telephoto lens.
Harry and Rus were going about it wrong.
They needed photos of the women.
If they weren’t there of their own volition, it would be the women who were missing.
Second, as soon as he got that camera, he was going back to the bluff.
And third, he didn’t actually have to sit on Mabel.
He could do the next best thing.