Witness Protection

by Morgan, Paris

  Sally sat on the bottom step as Karen began to explain the new rules while we were staying here.

  “You can only go outside if one of the adults who were at lunch takes you. I don’t care how much you want to go out or see the horses, we have to make sure that you’re safe. Okay?”

  Sally nodded in wide-eyed agreement.

  “If there is an emergency, and you can’t find an adult, then you need to call the police. Do you know how to do that?”

  “Yes, 9-1-1. I should tell them what’s happening. We learned the safety rules at school. I’ve got this, no worries.” She declared holding two thumbs up.

  “Can we start the food now?” Sally’s attention span was so short that I worried she’d ever be able to stay focused on important things.

  “Sure, I’m sure there was some mac and cheese leftover from lunch.”

  “Goodie,” Sally took off toward the kitchen.

  “GG doesn’t cook on Sunday nights since she does such a big spread at lunch. We normally have leftovers or fend for ourselves.” Karen explained moving toward the stairs.

  “Anything sounds wonderful right now.” I followed glad that we had been included in the family circle so easily.

  It didn’t take long for everyone to pile up their plates for reheating.

  Once seated, GG turned toward me with a serious expression and my heart dropped to my stomach.

  “I think that while you ladies are staying here, you should both learn how to ride a horse.”

  “Allie too?” Sally paused with a bite of food halfway to her mouth.

  “Yes, Allie too. It’s important for being on a ranch that you know how to handle a horse.” She cleared her throat, “I would also like all three of you to learn how to shoot a gun. Karen already knows how, as do the ranch hands that work here.”

  “Um, I appreciate the offer. I was never really comfortable with the idea of a gun around the house because of Sally. Mike always kept his police-issued gun in a lockbox. I was hoping that he’d never have a reason to use it on me.” My words while true, were blunt. They made the adults around the table fidget in their seats.

  “I’m sorry, y’all. It’s hard to change a mindset that’s been drilled into you. The fear of what could happen has always been in control of my actions. I didn’t want to think about what he was capable of. He always sensed if I was being disloyal. It made me nervous, and I’d blurt things out that maybe should have stayed on the inside.” I took a deep breath.

  “Do you think Sally should learn how to shoot a gun?”

  “Yes, sweetie. My children learned how to protect themselves when they were about Sally’s age. It gives them a chance to learn gun safety at the same time as to how to use a gun if they needed to.” GG spoke with determination. “We have all sorts of animals out there that could hurt her if she’s not prepared. Considering the way things are going, it wouldn’t hurt if you and Sally could kill a snake if you had to.”

  Her double meaning wasn’t lost on me, and I shuddered. Killing Mike wasn’t something that I wanted to do, but if it came down to him or Sally, I wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

  “Karen, do you think you can handle teaching them how to use a gun safely? We have the guns and ammo. There’s a space outback, we use it for target practice, and it would work perfectly.” GG smiled as if was the perfect solution for everyone.

  “The ranch hands are careful, but they have been known to leave a gun laying around and I don’t want an accident to happen.”

  I nodded along with everyone at the table. It was useless to try to change her mind.

  “So Violet Luke’s oldest middle daughter had gotten hurt. Which wasn’t funny really, but it was how she explained it that had us all in stitches that day.” GG was telling a story with her hands waving all around to ease all the seriousness of the adults.

  “She is normally so quiet but was crying when she came running into the room. I couldn’t see anything wrong, so I pulled her onto my lap. ‘Did you run into something?’ She shook her head no. It was like playing twenty questions to find out what happened.”

  “‘Did someone throw something at you?’ She was holding her nose carefully as she shook her head no, again.” GG chuckled at the memory, “I was about ready to shake her myself when it hit me, and I asked her a crazy question. ‘Did you hit yourself on accident?’”

  “Her little eyes lit up and I knew I’d hit the jackpot.”

  “She looked up at me through the tears… ‘I was carrying a rock with my feet, and it fell on my nose.’ The only way I figured that could happen was if she was lying her back with the rock on the bottoms of her feet with her legs in the air. The rock had dared to fall between her feet, hitting her squarely on the nose.” GG’s laugher was contagious.

  It was nice to be able to laugh about the antics of a seven-year-old, instead of worrying about the real world.

  I was enjoying myself. It was relaxing to be here in this peaceful home. I could only hope that we’d all be able to eventually recover from our pasts without gaining more scars to add to the present.

  Chapter 17

  Mike

  The room that greeted me wasn’t a prison bed. I wasn’t handcuffed to the bed which meant I wasn’t under arrest.

  I couldn’t be certain, but this didn’t look like the hospital at Roseville. It must be one of the larger hospitals in one of the bigger towns in the area.

  How had I gotten here? Had there been an accident? Where were Megan and Sally?

  The nurse might know the answer to those questions.

  I begin to look around for the call button thingy. The slight movement caused pain to shoot through my side and chest.

  With a moan, I stopped trying to move and the sharp pain ended immediately.

  The nurses must have been keeping a close eye on me because one stuck her head in the room just then.

  “How are you doing, Mr. Box? Are you feeling any pain?” She began to check my vitals.

  “Lady, of course, I’m feeling pain.” Sarcasm laced my tone. If she was stupid that wasn’t my problem.

  “What in the hell happened to me?” It wasn’t in me to be nice, and I felt as if a truck had run over me.

  “Now, watch yourself. You were in an accident. A nice man brought you in and probably saved your life even though he didn’t have to. You were banged up pretty bad. There was some internal bleeding and they had to go in and repair a few things.” She checked the catheter bag and iv.

  “Your ribs were cracked in addition to having a concussion. We couldn’t give you a lot of pain medication because we needed to have the doctor check you when you did wake up.” She puttered about as she talked.

  “They were starting to get concerned, you’ve been unconscious for several days. Do you have anyone that we should call and let them know where you are?”

  “Um, no. No close family that would be worried about me.” I tried to think through all the information she’d given me. “Do you know anything about the guy that dropped me off?”

  If she was calling me Mr. Box, there had to be a good reason. I didn’t want to mess up and get J.D. in trouble or both of us locked up.

  Still foggy, I knew that something wasn’t right, and I was trying to hide who I was.

  “I can give him a call when the doctor is done with you. Now, on a scale of one to ten, what is your pain at?” She didn’t seem to be in a hurry to administer the pain meds though.

  “Close to a ten. I couldn’t move to get the call thingy because it hurt so bad.”

  If my own wife was going to abandon me, then I was going to make sure that these ladies took care of me properly.

  Maybe I’d been undercover, and Megan just didn’t know where I was at. How else could I have been hiding from the law instead of trying to enforce it?

  “We’ll give you some meds after the doctor has been in to check on you. Then if it doesn’t get better, we can up the amount in small doses to make sure that you aren’t in pain.”
She turned to leave as if I wasn’t really that much of a concern for her.

  My eyes closed. I would just be patient until the doctor had been there, then maybe someone could tell me what in the hell was going on.

  ~~~

  Chapter 18

  Allie

  I was walking through a room full of blackness. Someone grabbed me from behind and cut off all the air in my lungs as I tried to struggled to break free unable to scream.

  My arm was pinned to my side and the stranger tightened his grip around my neck, choking me.

  The blackness closed in and the light at the end of the room beckoned to me.

  If I could just make it to the door and the light. I reached for it…

  A scream ripped from my throat as I woke with a start.

  Justin was sitting there in a chair next to the bed.

  “It’s okay.” He soothed moving over to take me into his arms. “There’s nothing here. I’ve got you. It will be all right.”

  “Someone was in my dream. They were trying to stop me from making it to the light.” I shuddered, “It was so real. If I had been able to reach the door, I might have been able to see who was attacking me.”

  Taking deep breaths, I began to calm down.

  It had only been a dream. A dream that had made her throat sore again.

  Justin continued to rock me gently in his arms lending me his strength.

  The room had grown darker while I’d been asleep. A lamp on the small table next to the bed provided the room with light. There was a dresser near the door so if I wanted to put it in front of the door, I could feel safer.

  There were two windows behind the bed and a large wardrobe large enough to hide someone was against the other wall.

  This couldn’t have been the room Justin had grown up in because there were too many ribbons on curtains and bedspread.

  As awareness returned, I started to feel embarrassed.

  I’d cried myself to sleep and Justin had been waiting for me to wake up, ready if I needed him there.

  “Justin, you didn’t have to stay with me. I mean your family is hanging out in the other room and I don’t want you to feel obligated to be with me all the time.” I tried to wiggle out of his arms to look up into his face. Silently hoping he wouldn’t listen to my words and stay right there with me.

  “Allie, my family has already gone to bed for the night. We got Megan, Sally, and Karen settled into the basement.” He pulled me closer so I wouldn’t try to get up.

  “We normally have a rule that boys and girls don’t sleep in the same bed unless they’re married. Mom made an exception for tonight because she knew that you needed to feel safe. It’s not like we’re canoodling together.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me, “Unless you want to that is?”

  His mother. Crap!

  “What will your mother think of me?” My hand flew to my mouth in horror. “I’ve been a horrible guest. She was so nice to me, and all I’ve done is eat her food, cry, and fall asleep in her house.”

  I felt ready to cry again.

  “Ugh! I really loved her, though. She is so nice.”

  He moved my head to his shoulder.

  “Mom is glad she could help take care of you and Megan while you’re healing. I know it’s been a rough few weeks for both of you. She’s willing to make sure I stick around to help out. In whatever ways I’m needed.” He winked at me.

  I smirked, “No canoodling, huh? This is all purely platonic? Even if we’re sleeping in the same for weeks on end, there is no chance that you’d find a way to canoodle?”

  “She couldn’t get you married in a normal, respectable way so she’s going to set me up.” My shoulders shook with laughter, “She’s hoping you’ll produce a grandchild for her to spoil in the next year, isn’t she? She’s a very sneaky woman.”

  Justin couldn’t contain his laughter at the image I’d painted of his very respectable mother setting us up.

  “Yep, you’ve hit the nail on the head with that one. Only she’s not going to admit it to anyone. The rules can’t be broken.” He playfully slapped his forehead, “Why didn’t I see what she was doing? She’s willing to bend if it’s further her matchmaking schemes.”

  “The rest of the family won’t let her meddle in their affairs, so she’s picked me out as an easy target.”

  “Really, Justin, you have the most wonderful family. It’s not something that everyone has in their lives. I didn’t have a family or a home.” I wasn’t trying to get him to pity me. It just was what it was.

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong, there are days when I would love to stop speaking to some of my family. I could never do that because I love them too much.” He pulled me down on the bed next to him.

  “We joke around, but we’re always there for each other. There will always be arguments and disagreements, that’s part of being a family. It’s hard for others to understand that we’re joking around or playfully teasing each other, but there’s not one of them I wouldn’t give my life for.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of families through the years, while many say they’re a loving caring family when it comes to sticking together, they’re sadly lacking.” I hated to pass judgment on others, but I’d never seen a family that was selfless like the Greenleys were.

  “We tend to take our family for granted when so many out there don’t have more than a mom or a dad. It’s just the way it’s always been for us.” Justin looked like he was trying to imagine a life without a family.

  “Take Megan for example. No one was around to keep Mike from abusing her. Her family isn’t in the picture. After she married Mike, they weren’t there for her anymore.” I knew I sounded cynical, but it was the reality I knew. “I haven’t had many good examples of what a family really means. I hope that your family will be what Megan and Sally need to heal.”

  “Once you’ve been here a few days, you’ll see that we’re one of the good ones. I’m pretty sure that my mom has already started the adoption process to officially bring all of you into the family.” He grinned, “There are no takebacks or changing your mind once we’ve decided to love you. You’re stuck with us.”

  “Well, then that makes this a really awkward situation. I mean you’d be my brother and yet I’m sleeping with you in the same bed for the second time.” I shook a finger in his face. “I’m not sure I can be adopted into a family where this kind of behavior goes on behind closed doors.”

  I snuggled down with my head on his shoulder, “I’m not sure if I can deal with all this closeness.”

  My stomach rumbled and we both laughed.

  “How about if we take care of your hunger with some food in the kitchen? I’ll bet you’re starving.” He sat up and held out a hand.

  I took it with a giggle. It was nice to have someone that didn’t mind being teased but was good to look at as well.

  Monday morning was an adjustment for everyone.

  Justin got up early to go out and help James with the chores in the barn but returned in time to start moving breakfast dishes to the table.

  Sally had been so excited to help GG cook that she’d gotten the rest of us to the kitchen as well.

  “What can we do to help?” Megan had stood to the side not wanting to get in the way of those with both arms available.

  “If you can Karen can start putting these casseroles together, then they’ll be able to go in the fridge until about an hour before dinner. Less stress and we’ll have some leftovers for lunch tomorrow.” GG instructed with ease. She was used to running a large kitchen filled with people willing to help out.

  “Good morning, ladies,” James called as he walked in before coming around the center island to give the cook a big kiss on the lips.

  GG swatted at him playfully giving Sally a wink. “James behave. There are children present.”

  Even after almost forty years of marriage, their children had seen all of their hugging and smooching.

  Ignoring her, he blew her a kiss as he grabbed the last tray
of cups heading for the dining room.

  “I think it’s sweet you guys still flirt with each other. It gives me hope there might be some nice men left in the world. I was beginning to think they didn’t exist anymore.” I couldn’t resist a look in Justin’s direction to see how his parents’ playfulness affected him.

  It had always been drilled into us that affection was supposed to be kept behind closed doors out of sight. I mean high school kids were always making out, but not older married people.

  “They’ve been doing that thing where they chase each other for years. Thank goodness, they’ve kept it PG for those of us that don’t want our eyes to fall out. GG and James have managed to stay together and provide a good example for the rest of us. Even when they fight, they always make up.”

  Finding love and a lasting marriage wasn’t just for fairytales. They might actually come true if you worked hard enough. I felt hope for the first time in years.

  GG hadn’t been joking when she’d said that she wanted us to learn how to shoot. After breakfast was over and the dishes were done, Karen gathered us outside to start practice.

  One of the ranch hands was setting up targets, while another brought out a collection of guns and enough ammo to fill a small gun store.

  “Are you ready to try shooting?” I asked Sally who was having a hard time keeping her hands off the guns in front of her.

  “They look really cool. I want to try this one.”

  She’d pointed to a shotgun that would have knocked her on her ass.

  “Um, why don’t you try the BB gun first and get used to it. Then maybe when you’re hitting the target regularly, I’ll see about letting you graduate to a handgun.” Karen cautioned, “The shotgun has a big kick, and the adults will have a hard time trying it out. Sorry, chica.”

  Karen began a demonstration of how safety and etiquette for handling a gun were important.