Humbling Her Cowboy (Miller Brothers 0f Texas Book 1)

by Natalie Dean

  It didn’t last long, their little burst of activity, but after five or ten minutes the two of them were sitting on the floor across from each other—all of the pillows yanked off the bed—laughing and reminiscing about better and worse times.

  Tawny was just in the middle of her story about begging her old doctor to remove her tonsils when the phone rang.

  The sound was so abrupt, sharp and peeling, that both of them jumped. Frenchie knew only two people had their number, Solomon and the police officer woman, so she rushed to her feet to answer it.

  “Hello?” she asked, trying to sound calm. In truth, she dreaded it being the police officer. Although the woman hadn’t been the worst—heck, she hadn’t even been that bad—Frenchie dreaded going into the station. Cops had never really been her friends her whole life.

  When she was younger, it used to be they wouldn’t believe her or let her file a report when she went in. She didn’t have the right language to describe what was happening, and one of the higher-ups in the precinct was her stepdad’s best friend going back to their military days. Later, when she’d tried to run away, cops were the ones who found her and returned her. And then she ran away again. It was the third time that she’d actually ever made it out of the city, and she’d had four close calls before she hit eighteen and finally didn’t have to worry anymore.

  But she still worried. It was hard to forget having her blood turn to ice anytime she saw a uniform. Vaguely, she knew that cops were supposed to help people and that they often did. That legally they had to return her to her parents and not all of them were out to hurt her. But it was so hard to separate that from the adrenaline and fear that spiked around them, and she was supposed to go to a whole precinct full of them.

  Ugh. She really was messed up in the head, wasn’t she?

  “Frenchie! Were you up? I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  She let out a long breath when she realized it was Solomon, sounding concerned but pleased on the other end of the line.

  “No, I was already up.”

  “You’re breathless, is everything all right?”

  She looked to the pillow still in one of her hands and quickly dropped it, feeling herself flush. “Oh yeah, everything’s fine. I just ran to the phone, is all.” For some reason she didn’t want him to know that she’d been doing something so silly. Something had shifted in how she thought about the man, and she found herself wanting to impress him.

  She hadn’t cared about impressing anyone in years. What was impressive about bathing in gas station sinks and having a sophomore education? Nothing. And yet she still wanted to try.

  “Oh, all right. Listen, I wanted to get ahead of this thing, so I already pulled a couple of our lawyers onto this. Don’t worry, they’re the nice ones.” He paused. “Or at least the nicest ones that we have who also have experience with the criminal justice world. Apparently, business law is an entirely different matter than civil law, which I think I knew, but I didn’t ever think about, you know?”

  “Uh-huh.” What was the difference between business law and civil? She didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to admit to it over the phone to Solomon.

  “But anyway, if you could gather up all the people who helped us out, I’d like to meet up with all of you later. I’ll provide food, of course.”

  “Um… me n’ Tawny could try. I know most of us are sticking around to keep an eye on each other, but I can’t guarantee that we’ll find them.”

  “Right… right, I forgot about the whole no phone thing. Do the best you can, and I’ll swing by around… noon? Or would later work? Like, one? I do want to get all of you back before it gets dark.”

  “Okay. And the lawyers know that we’re… that we’re…” she trailed off, trying to think of how to say it in more graceful terms.

  “That you’re what?”

  “You know… not fancy, like you and your family.”

  “They’re aware that you’re all in a vulnerable position, yeah.”

  “Okay. Cool, thank you.” There was a sliver of relief but not that much. She still was going to have to meet up with some strange, intimidating lawyers, but at least they were warned ahead of time that a ragtag group of ne’er-do-wells was about to invade their lives.

  “Why?”

  Again, she really didn’t want him knowing that she was worried about what they thought of her, and by extension, what he thought of her. “I dunno. Just seemed important. But later would be better. Sometimes we tend to gather after the lunch rush just by coincidence, so I stand a good chance of rounding them all up.”

  “All right then, noted. See you then.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He hung up and she set down the phone receiver, reminding her of Abuela’s old landline when she was younger.

  “So, what’s the deal?” Tawny asked, flopping back on her bed and looking at Frenchie. “What about after lunch?”

  “We need to go round up the others. Get your shoes on.”

  “Oh geez. That sounds serious.”

  “It is. We’re going to meet up with some of Solomon’s lawyers.”

  “Ew, gross. That won’t be the easiest sale to the others, you know.”

  “Solomon also said he would be providing food.”

  “Oh, and there you go. I’m up!”

  True to her word, she jumped to her feet and went towards her shoes. Frenchie chuckled to herself, although when she thought about that delicious chili that Solomon had made, she realized that yeah, it would be easy to get everyone to agree to go if she found them.

  She just had to actually find them first.

  * * *

  It was basically a Christmas miracle, because after three hours of pounding the pavement and then going to the community center, she had found Casey and Alabama, with several others promising to get word to Alitza, Adam, and Chantal. Frenchie was especially grateful to the latter two, who hadn’t been around for Tawny’s revelation, but apparently were good friends of Alitza who she knew would want to help. There was more of a story there, something about a mechanic, but there hadn’t been time for the whole thing to get explained out. All that Frenchie knew was that the duo had come when their friend called and helped out immensely with their little sting operation.

  “So, did he say what he was going to make?” Casey asked as they walked back to their hotel. “More chili? Pizza dipped in gold?”

  “I don’t think gold pizza would taste very good,” Adam said with his thick southern accent. The boy was from all the way deep down in Louisiana. He had a drawl that was difficult for even her to discern sometimes, and she’d been in the south for years. “Although I hear it’s real malleable, so maybe ya wouldn’t break your teeth.”

  “What’s that mean?” Tawny asked. “Mall-able?”

  “Mal-e-able,” Adam said. “And it means, uh, able to be molded, I think? Like kinda soft, even if it’s metal.”

  “Ahhh, malleable. That’s a good word.”

  Frenchie already knew the word, but it pleased her that Tawny was expanding her vocabulary. She was acutely aware that knowledge was power, and since none of them had finished high school, they had to grab whatever they could whenever they could.

  She knew she wasn’t stupid, per se. None of them really were. But it bothered her that there were whole chunks of knowledge missing from their experiences as humans. Back before the old library had been ’dozed, she used to go there all the time in the extreme heat and extreme cold of the winter so she could curl up with a book or hop onto their computers. She learned so much from the internet.

  Maybe, after she was done with the lawyer business, she would ask Solomon to stop somewhere she could grab a postcard and stamps, then she could mail something to herself for proof of address. That didn’t solve her ID problem, but the last time, she’d emailed the library a picture of her old ID, and that had been good enough. It was still saved to the email host cloud, and maaaaaybe it wouldn’t matter that it was expired?

  It
gave her a sliver of hope, and that hope only brightened when they approached the hotel and spotted Alitza and Chantal outside of it.

  “We heard you were looking for us?”

  Frenchie nodded. “Yeah, Solomon wants us to meet up with his lawyers.”

  Alitza wrinkled her nose. “Really, you called us away from the best day to dumpster dive at the mall to meet with a bunch of suits?”

  “He also said he was providing food.”

  “Chica, why didn’t you start off with that? When do we head out?”

  “Just an hour or so from now, I’ll have to check the time. But first I want all of us to shower.”

  “Why’s that?” Adam drawled. “You saying we smell?”

  “Absolutely.” Frenchie flashed him a grin as she slid their keycard through the door and opened it. “And we don’t want these lawyers doing a bad job if they can’t breathe.”

  “Man, I wish I had some clean clothes,” Alitza grumbled. “We were just in the dumpsters. Even if we take a shower, we’re not exactly going to be smelling like roses.”

  “Hmm, I can go grab some towels from the front desk and… lemme see.” She craned her neck towards the clock. “It’s twelve fifteen, so I think I can probably run them down to the laundry and get them clean and dry in time. Everyone okay with that?”

  There was a chorus of agreement, so Frenchie went about the whole process of making sure that everyone had enough towels to be decent if they were worried, then collected their clothing.

  She had no problem spending the four dollars that were needed to put the dirty clothes in the washer, buy the detergent, then put them in the dryer. She was grateful that the laundry was connected to the lobby, because she could leave it safely while she went back to the room and did several other things. Such as brushing her teeth in the kitchenette sink and brushing her hair.

  Her roots were really grown in. She only managed to dye it every once in a while. She would go to the local beauty school and volunteer for them to do whatever they wanted short of shaving her bald, but she hadn’t had a chance to go there lately. She wished she did, because she looked a little rough.

  Or a lot rough.

  Her skin was splotchy, and even with two full weeks of really spoiled living, her body was just… strange. Her muscles, along with some fullness, were coming back in her arms and her calves, but her stomach was still mostly concave and all of her ribs showed. She hated it. She missed how she used to look, happy and healthy and full of energy. Maybe, if she could have been that girl for longer, she could have grown into a woman that Solomon could be interested in.

  Right, and maybe unicorns existed too.

  Besides, what did it matter? She knew that daydreaming about things that could never happen was just depressing, and why should she care what kind of woman Solomon would like. As she had said and thought many times, he lived in an entirely different world than her, one that she couldn’t even touch. And although he was a wonderful visitor, there was no way he’d want to pull himself down into the muck by lowering himself to her level.

  Ugh. She just wished she didn’t keep thinking of how he sounded when he had told that man off. Or how he looked at her. Or the strong line of his jaw whenever he pressed his lips together in thought. Or how long his lashes were (unfairly long), or—

  “Hey, are these socks up for grabs?” Alitza asked, interrupting her thoughts. “Because I could really use a new pair.”

  “Yeah, of course,” she answered, shoving all thoughts of Solomon away. “Help yourself to anything. There’s food too.”

  “What, really? Wow, you guys got it good up here.” The girl did indeed start helping herself, which made Frenchie feel better. “What, you like his sugar baby or something?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  The girl squinted at her. “Really? But people just don’t usually do all this without expecting something back.”

  “You know, I used to think the same thing.”

  “And you think you’ve changed on that view?”

  “Maybe. I think so.”

  “Huh, maybe I should get me a rich not-sugar daddy and see if I change my mind too.”

  Frenchie huffed and threw an empty bag at the girl before returning to her tasks. The time flew by, and before she knew it, Solomon was knocking at the door.

  She rushed over, pausing just before to smooth her hair and then opening the door only a crack.

  “Hey, sorry I’m about ten minutes late, it took me longer than I expected to navigate through the city with the van.”

  “Van?” she asked, not sure she heard right.

  “Yeah, we certainly weren’t all going to squeeze into my car. You all ready? Did you get everyone?”

  “Yeah, I did, but we need about, uh, ten more minutes for their clothes to dry downstairs. We didn’t want to show up all stinky, but I forgot how slow the machines are here.” That was a mild lie. She had forgotten how long washers and dryers took in general, but she didn’t want Solomon to think she went around dirty all the time. She worked hard to keep herself as clean as she could, that routine just didn’t usually include functional appliances.

  Solomon’s eyebrows furrowed just a bit, giving him a serious look. “Frenchie, if you’re worried about them saying something, they wou—”

  “So yeah, just about ten minutes. You want to walk to get a soda at the vending machine with me? I feel like splurging.”

  “A soda from a vending machine is splurging?”

  She nodded as she pushed past him, feeling a bit prideful that her guess had been exactly right on how to distract him. “It is when soda from the store is ninety-nine cents and water fountains are free. Come on, walk with me, then we can grab the clothes.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Coming from someone else, that might have been condescending. But from Solomon it was anything but. She got the impression that he was used to being in charge of things, of calling the shots and managing meetings and whatever else the heir of an empire needed to do. But with her, he deferred more often than not. Either he trusted her, or he was the most easy-going business shark she’d ever met.

  “So, how do you feel?” he asked.

  Frenchie shot him a curious expression as she bent down to get her soda. She’d tried to pay with her own money, but Solomon had used his long arms to slide his card through the machine before she even had a chance. Back when she was a little kid, vending machines wouldn’t take cards and she’d never owned one herself, so she’d been so surprised she’d just stared at it for a few moments.

  “What do you mean?” Frenchie asked.

  “I know there are more bad guys out there, but you managed to help stop one of them.”

  “I didn’t stop him. We did. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

  Solomon shrugged, his broad shoulders catching her attention in a way they probably shouldn’t. “I don’t need the credit. I should have been doing way more for years. I always thought we were ahead of the curve because we donated so much to charity, but looking back…”

  He grimaced, and for some bizarre reason she wanted to reach up and stroke his face. She was sure he wouldn’t appreciate that.

  He continued, “But I don’t think that a single one wasn’t somehow to benefit us. There were tax write-offs, the alliances, the political favors my father was trying to curry. The things he said about people in need… I don’t want to get into it, but it made me think about some things.”

  “Oh?” She didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t surprised his father was less than kind, but it was strange to hear that he was questioning things. People rarely shook their biases, especially when they were handed down by their folks.

  “Yeah. But I can’t really dedicate a ton of time to it until this is all cleared up. I’m trying to make sure his bail is ridiculously high. I don’t want him out and about on the streets or getting away.”

  She nodded. She was past the point of asking him why all the time, e
ven if she still wondered it in the back of her head. “That’s smart. You seem to be on top of this.”

  “Yeah, I used the spare time I had when we were setting the trap to research as much as I could. I wanted to make sure we didn’t get him arrested just for him to walk away.”

  “I really appreciate that.” The words didn’t seem to be enough, but that was all that she could do. She had nothing to give him, and she wasn’t smart enough to teach him anything. It wasn’t like he needed street smarts or anything like that. So much of her brain was dedicated to survival and protection that there wasn’t much room for anything else.

  “Think the clothes are done now?” Solomon asked, clearly changing the subject. But she was grateful for that.

  “Let’s go check.”

  They went down to the laundry room and there were a couple of minutes left, so they mostly just stood around. Frenchie felt acutely aware of Solomon’s presence and how he stood, his posture, the timbre of his voice. The laundry finished quickly, and he insisted on carrying it upstairs.

  She allowed him, but once they got to the door, she took the clothing and slipped in. From there, the boys changed in the bathroom, and the girls in the bedroom, before they all were heading right back out.

  She remembered Solomon mentioned something about it taking an hour to drive there and back, so she settled in for the ride.

  “Everyone buckled in?” Solomon asked once all of the doors were closed.

  “Wait, do we really?” Tawny asked.

  “If you want this van to go, then you bet. You didn’t spend two weeks recovering just to end up thrown out of the windshield if anything happens? So buckle up.”

  “All right, all right, Daddy Warbucks, breathe a moment.”

  Frenchie shot the young girl a look in the rearview mirror. Tawny just batted her eyes. Cheeky.