“No. I would love to watch it. As I said, I have no feeling whatsoever about my mother. I don’t think I have for a very long time.” The door opened behind them, and the realtor asked if Booker wanted to see any more of the house. “No. I’ve seen enough. Tell the bank, who I know owns this place, that I’ll give them fifty cents on the dollar for what is owed in back taxes and nothing more. The house has been on the market for far too long for someone to pay what they’re asking. Also, they’ll give me a short-term loan for the balance, or I’ll pay cash for the house, and they’ll not earn anything from the deal.” He looked at Wats before continuing with the woman making notes. “Also, this is a deal-breaker—I want a good deal on the surrounding acreage. I looked it up—it’s nearly three hundred acres, not including the fifty around the house.”
“I don’t think they’ll go for that, Mr. Wilkerson.” Booker told her he’d just find another house and another realtor. “All right. I’ll see what I can do.”
Wats could tell that Booker had pissed the woman off. And when she went into the house again, he asked him why he’d do that. She’d not done anything wrong that he’d seen. Booker said she’d commented that the house had several more offers on it, all of them higher than the asking price.
“She lied to you.” He nodded. “I think people hear that you’re a college professor and a chemistry one at that and automatically think you’re a nerd and know nothing about anything other than a lab. But what they don’t realize, until it’s too late, is that not only are you brilliant, but you also have a good sense of the market.”
“Yeah, that’s what gets people in trouble. Assuming.” He asked him to open the letter. “I’ve decided that I want you to read it to me, buddy. I want to feel like—I don’t know. I need to feel something about my mother instead of just this nothing void that I have about her now. Hate and love, they’re two sides of the same coin if you’re not careful.”
Wats opened the envelope, and something fell out. Picking up the napkin that was covered in blood, he put it on his lap and read a few lines to himself before turning to Booker. He asked him if he was sure he wanted to hear it.
“Yes. Now that I know by the look on your face that it’s as bad as I thought it would be. Go ahead. I’m assuming that’s my mother’s blood. Go on, Wats. I won’t hold it against you for what the bitch said to me.” Booker grinned. “Go on, buddy. Read it to me.”
“Dear worthless piece of shit.” He looked at Booker when he laughed. “I’m dead now, and it’s all your fault. Your father’s too, but he will have to wonder for the rest of his life why I have come to despise him so much. I’m willing to bet that he will never date again because he’ll come to realize that I was the best thing ever for him. I hope he fails as much as I know you will.”
“She certainly has a very high opinion of herself, don’t you think?” They both laughed, and it felt good. “Believe it or not, Dad just asked me yesterday if I had a problem with him dating. I told him hell no, to go for it. I think like the others, my dad has been lonely for a very long time.”
“I agree with you there. I know my dad is having a blast helping Uncle Clayton run for mayor. I think between the two of them, they’ll get this town back on track.” He glanced at the letter again. “Are you ready for more?” Booker nodded. “I’m going to kill myself. Not because I feel guilty about anything I’ve done. I do regret killing Eita. My heart does ache so badly for what I did to her. She would have taken us all as far as the White House if she’d been alive. No, I’m taking my own life because I want you to think about it for the rest of your life. How you, my only son, treated me so badly when I needed you most. Actually, all your life you have been such a terrible person. I hope to God you fail at every turn. That you never marry—not that anyone would have you, but I want you to fail at that as well. The marriage your father and I had was perfect, but you never took the time to learn from me—you ungrateful bastard. I wish every day that I had aborted you along with the other unwanted trash that I had and remained a childless woman. I know I would have enjoyed my life so much more without you in it. You’re to take this napkin that I had to steal from the jail that you left me in and keep it on your person for the rest of your days. I want you to think about what you’ve done to me, your own mother, every time you see it. Then she signs it with her name. What do you want to do with this?”
“I’m going to burn it with the napkin.” He stood up just as the door was opening behind them again. The realtor said the bank wished to speak to him. “I’m a very busy man, Ms. James. If he’s not willing to come to my terms, then I’m sorry, I really am, but I’m not going to dick around when I know for a fact that there are several other houses on the market that I can get for a good deal less than the asking price. This is a buyers’ market right now, and I intend to get as much bang for my buck as I can.”
“Mr. Waller said that if you pay off the back taxes, he’ll throw in the land, as it has no access other than the land around this house. No one wants to buy it, and the house when all they want to do is plant some corn.” She smiled at him. “I told him you were going to walk away from this deal over a few bucks that he would be able to write off at the end of the year. Is that all right?”
“Yes. And you figure out what your commissions would have been for the asking price of the house, and I’ll gladly pay that to you.” She told him that was nice but not necessary. “No, it’s not, but that’s the way I work. You went to bat for me, even though you lied to me about the other offers, and I appreciate that.”
“I’m sorry, sir. That’s what I was told to tell you.” He told her she’d more than likely sell more houses if she was honest with people. “I might just do that from now on. I really don’t care for lying to people that are spending that much money for a home they might just hate because of me. Thank you, sir. Very much.”
“Anytime.” Booker looked at him. “I have to head to the bank, I’m sure, so why don’t the two of us have some lunch, then see what sort of trouble we can get into? I heard through Abby that you’re dating Rayne. I like her. We’ve been friends for a very long time. I don’t want to threaten you or anything, but please don’t hurt her.”
“I don’t plan on it. She is going to my home today to see if she can stand to live there. Not that I don’t think she’ll love it as much as I do, but that would be up to her where we live. If this goes that far. I’m not sure what we’re doing right now, to be honest. I’ve spoken to North about her grandda coming to live with us and leaving the house he just put in empty. He told me it didn’t matter to him one way or the other, he’d just find himself a renter, and that would be all right too.” Booker said he might use it if North doesn’t hire someone to watch over the fields he just purchased. “You’re right. I never realized this land would butt up against his. That’s wonderful. Also, you might not have known this, but you also have access to the river from your place. I remember seeing a dock there when we were looking for mushrooms this past spring.”
“It’s hard to believe that so much has changed since then. None of it—well, hardly any of it—seems all that good, don’t you agree? Aunt Holly was alive. We were all hanging out around the house. I don’t care for mushrooms at all much. However, I certainly enjoyed going with you guys and her to find them. Her just being there when we needed her. Abby is filling in nicely for her, but I do miss her hugs. Aunt Holly had the best hugs. That was the best time. Don’t you think?”
“Yes. I miss so much with her being gone. But Amy did tell me she’s planning on organizing repeats of some of the things that she used to do with us. To keep her memory alive. I think that’s a good idea.” Booker agreed and then asked him if he wanted to walk through the house with him. “I do. But I would like for you to tell me what brought you outside in the first place. The lady showing you around, she called me when you’d been out here for so long.”
“It hit me.” Wats knew what he meant with
out him explaining too much. “She’s gone. My mother is gone. All the aunts and their meanness are gone. It’s all gone, and it hit me right in the heart so badly I needed to sit down.”
“Nothing more than that? I worry about you sometimes. All of us, as a matter of fact. Especially after North telling us about his episode.” Booker told him it was nothing like that. “I hope so. I can’t lose another person in my life, Booker. It’s too much now. I need you guys here to balance me out.”
“I thought you had a girlfriend for that.” He patted him on the back as they moved through the house he’d purchased. “As I said, I like Rayne. She’s wonderful. Sheesh, Wats, I just bought a house. I wonder what dear old Mom is thinking about that.”
They were both laughing as they made their way through the home. It was a nice place, but as he’d said to the realtor, it needed work after being empty for so long. The kitchen, while in good condition, was out of date and needed to be taken down to the studs and built again. Bringing it up to this decade.
There were six bedrooms on the second floor with ample closets and two bathrooms, one at each end of the long hallway. The master suite was on the third floor, and it looked to Wats like a person could simply live up there and never leave.
“The views from here are amazing. You can see deep into the woods from here and the river too.” Booker opened up one of the doors, both of them thinking it was a closet. “Christ, it’s a nursery. It’s as big as my flipping condo. I love this place.”
So did Wats. As they went to the bank to sign the paperwork, they had fun. He was glad that Booker was over whatever had happened at the house and was moving on. Now, if he could only convince Brandon of the same thing. The man wasn’t in a funk—the opposite, as a matter of fact. But Wats was more worried about him than he was any of the rest of them.
Chapter 4
Rayne waited for her turn to talk to her adviser. She’d been called in, along with the rest of the nursing students that were in their home stretch. After four and a half long years of being together, they were as close as they could be to each other. And none of them seemed to have any idea what this was about. When her name was called, she got high fives from the others still waiting as she made her way into the office.
“Hello, Rayne. I’m sorry about this short notice, but there are some things we’d like to speak to you and the others about. As you might have heard, there has been a shake-up at the hospital.” She said she’d not heard anything. “I’m sorry. Then let me explain. I was hoping we could get behind this before it got out. The hospital is approximately fourteen nurses short now for staffing. I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I’m afraid it is. The inspector, who came by yesterday, said we cannot continue to have our doors open being so short-staffed as we have in the past. Since we’re growing, the town, I mean, then we need to have the place up to staffing requirements at all times. He heard about the accident that put us in a bind a couple of months ago. The accident that was out on Highway Forty. Do you remember that?”
“I’m not from around here, sir. I drove back and forth from my home in Columbus for classes. I’ve only just moved here to go to the hospital for my technical courses. I like the small-town feeling here.” He said that was why he’d called her in. “I don’t understand.”
“You and the other nursing students that have come in are being given an opportunity to take your state boards now. Today. From your grades, I believe you’d not have a bit of trouble passing. You’ve carried a good GPA since you started in this program.” Her mind went all over the place about taking her tests today. “One of the other students decided she’d not have to stress about the test if she didn’t have time to do so and is going to take hers now. I think that might be the case with you. You’re not required to do this now, nor will it be held against you if you decide you want to wait. Because of you working in the hospital for us, even if you didn’t want to go ahead and test, you’ll be paid the wages of a nurse of your caliber. And you are a high-quality nurse, Ms. Oliver. The professors have enjoyed having you in their classes. The doctors that you worked with at the other hospital had nothing but rave reviews about your work ethic. I’ve not been able to say this to any of the others, nor will I to those that are still left, but I do believe you’re going to pass this test without any trouble.”
“Thank you.” She sat there for a second. “I was going to be working for Doctor Wilkerson while I was going to school. Just answering the phone and such. May I call him and see if it would be all right with him if I were to go to the hospital instead?”
“Yes, by all means. Here, you use my phone, and I’ll give you a few minutes.” She felt like she was being rushed, and it didn’t settle well with her belly or nerves. Taking a deep breath as soon as the door closed behind Mr. Elliot, she picked up the phone to call Wats. He was laughing when he answered her.
“Professor Elliot, I was just thinking—” She cut him off and told him that it was her, that she was in his office. “Is there something wrong? Are you hurt? Do you need me to come and get you? Honey, what is it?”
“You’re wonderful. I hope you know that. No, not a thing is wrong.” She let the tears fall, another thing she did when she was stressed out. Cry. After telling him what she’d been told, she asked him about working for him. “You see, they’re short-staffed. I don’t think they want me there all the time, just until they can get some better trained nurses. I want to work with you. Very much so. I have visions of you chasing me around the desk. I’m getting off track here. I want to help you both, but I don’t think that will do me a bit of good.”
“Okay, just let my mind get out of the thought of you being naked on my desk for a moment.” He didn’t say anything for several seconds. “Not going to happen. So we might as well move on. Honey, do you want to do this today? I believe, like Professor Elliot, that you’re going to do well at it. And the fact that you’ll be finished with it all an entire eight weeks earlier would be one less stressful item off your list. Right?”
“Yes. I have been studying since I started. I think I could pass it, but how well, I have no idea. I want to do this, but I don’t want to leave you in a situation that will make you short-staffed either.” Wats told her he could find someone to work for him and that it was the desk part he was most looking forward to. “How about we do this then. I do this today, and then you move into the bedroom that I’m in, and we have this sexual tension taken care of once and for all?”
She knew he was still on the line. His breathing, harsh and quick, told her that. Rayne smiled when he asked for another minute, and she had to laugh when he said he needed to sit down. Telling him if he didn’t want to do it they didn’t have to was mean, she knew, but it got him talking again.
“Do you have any idea how many cold showers I’ve taken since I’ve met you? Several times a day, let me tell you.” She giggled, a thing she’d not done since she was a child. “I agree to that, all of it. Take your test. I’ll take you out to dinner tonight, then I will make love to you for the rest of the week. How’s that for a plan?”
“I love it.” She nearly told him she loved him as well but didn’t want to make him feel as if he had to say it back to her. Instead, she told him she didn’t know when she’d be home, but she’d let him know when she was finished. “I don’t know what I’ll do for lunch, but I’ll figure something out. Wish me luck.”
“Wishing you all the luck you’ll need. However, I think you’re going to do just fine. Let me know when you take your break, and I’ll try to come and see you. I have a terrible need for a nice long kiss from you.” She said he’d distract her. “Good point. I’ll try very hard not to do that. All right, love. I’ll look forward to seeing you soon.”
Taking the National Council Licensure Examination, or NCLEX-RN for short, took six hours. That was all she was allotted anyway. She’d been told by other nursing personnel she’d worked with over the year
s that cramming for the exam wouldn’t help. It was something you had to prepare for throughout your studies. That was exactly what she’d done. Even during the months she didn’t have a heavy load, Rayne had gotten out her old notes and read over them to be ready. She’d been trying to get ready for this for a long time.
Being seated in a cubicle, Rayne could see that there were other people in the room with her. The proctor was there, and after he handed her the thick file for her to begin, he put her name on his chalkboard and the time she started. Opening it to the first page, Rayne closed it again and took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. This was it, she told herself. What she’d worked for. Opening the file again, she started on the test.
“Ms. Oliver? You can take a break now if you’d like—it’s been three hours.” She looked around at the room. “You can take an hour if you wish. It won’t count against you as timed testing unless you’re late returning.”
“Yes. I’d like that.” He took her file, closed it, and put a piece of tape at every opening. After he signed his name to the strips of tape, she did as well. That way, when she returned, she’d know that no one tampered with her paperwork. Pulling out her phone, she called Wats. “I have less than an hour. I can’t be late, he told me.”
“I have ordered us some food, and all I need to do is bring it to you. I’m leaving here now.” She asked if he had gotten her something to drink. She was very thirsty. “Yes. I noticed that you like sweet tea, so I had the deli make you a gallon that you can drink while we eat. I’m pulling up in front of the offices now if you want to come out.”
Getting into the car, she laughed when he handed her a large picnic basket. As he drove down the block to the park area, he told her what he’d been doing since she’d called. Wats didn’t ask her how she thought she was doing. Nor did he mention their plans for later. Just small talk that didn’t put her on edge. In fact, it seemed to calm her in ways that she needed.
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