Hitta's Tea Maker

by Edwina Fort

  I exhaled, relieved to hear that he’ll be letting the topic drop…At least for now.

  That night when I broke the news to Jessie about her grandmother, I tried to prepare myself for her grief, but surprisingly there was none.

  “My mama probably dead too,” she said matter-of-factly.

  I was so shocked by her words it took me a moment to answer her. “Don’t say that, sweetheart.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t want her to be alive.”

  “Jessie! No! You can’t speak that way about your mom.”

  “Why come?”

  “Because, baby, no matter what she's done, that's still your mother." She frowned as she thought about my words.

  “Why do you want your mother dead?”

  Her eyes welled up with tears. “Because if she comes back, then I’ll have to leave, and I want to stay with you.”

  I pulled her to me and hugged her close… “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay…”

  Although I said those words, I didn't know if they were true. I hadn't heard from either of Jessie's parents for two months. Both of them had always played disappearing acts, but they'd never stayed away for so long.

  After Stan left, Hitta drove me around to look for Westly. We went to all of his known hangouts, but nobody had seen him. I asked some of his close associates if they knew what friend he was working with in California, and they all claimed they didn’t know anybody from California and never even heard Westly talking about anybody from there.

  By the time of Diana’s funeral and I still hadn’t heard from West, I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’d awakened that morning with a heavy heart. I told Hitta about it and he said that it was natural for me to feel that way with that being the day of the funeral and all.

  I don't know what I would have done without him. That morning I felt weird all the way around. I don't know if it was due to the anxiety of knowing I was going to be around Stan again for a good length of time, or just the stress of looking for Westly to tell him about his mother’s death, but after I got out of the shower I fell to my knees in front of the toilet when a sudden bout of queasiness came over me.

  Because I didn’t have anything in my stomach, I ended up dry heaving. Hitta heard me and came into the bathroom helping me to my feet. But I felt another bout of nausea and had to hurry back to the toilet.

  After it was safe for me to walk away, he carried me to the bed and put a cold towel on my head.

  “Just lay here and rest for a minute, Teacup. I’ll help Jessie get ready for the funeral, don’t worry about nothing, I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Thank you…I think all the stress is getting to me.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, it’s a lot going on. But try and rest, baby…I got this.”

  True to his word he took care of everything else while I focused on pulling myself up out of the bed and putting on my black dress.

  When I finally made it downstairs, I took one look at Jessie and my whole day brightened as laughter bubbled up in me.

  She was wearing a ballerina skirt with a pair of jeans underneath, the little Chicago Bears jersey Hitta had gotten her, and a pair of cowboy boots. Her braids had been divided into two ponytails, one that sat on top of her head and the other that was cocked off to the side. There were two pink ribbons tied around the base of each one.

  My gaze went to Hitta, who looked very handsome in blue jeans, a black button-up shirt, and a pair of tan Timberlands.

  “What?” he asked looking at Jessie, not seeing anything wrong with the way she was dressed.

  “What happened?” I asked around my laughter.

  He shrugged. “I told her to get dressed and after, I helped her with her hair.”

  Jessie looked down at herself, holding out her arms. “You like it, Tee-Tee?”

  I grabbed her jacket off the coat rack. “You look lovely, baby.”

  Heck! Why not…?

  Diana's funeral was miserable. All of her and Stan's snobby friends used the occasion to peacock and try and show off their wealth in front of the other. The only one there who I felt sorry for was Barbara, Diana’s mom. She was the only one there that seemed to be genuinely hurt.

  When Jessie and I hugged her, she clung to us and cried, so happy to see us.

  “Where is Westly?” she asked through her tears.

  It broke my heart to tell her that I couldn’t find him. Barbara has always been kind to me. She treated me like I was her real granddaughter and not like a foster kid. She was also the only one in her family that had accepted Jessie.

  Everybody else including Diana had taken one look at Trina and instantly deduced that Jessie was not Westly’s child. So, although they didn’t outright deny her…they didn’t go out of their way to try and have a relationship with her either, all except Barbara, who loved her like she’d loved me.

  When Barbara had gotten too old to take care of herself, Stan made Diana put her in a nursing home. Diana had wanted to bring her to live with us and hire a nurse to help take care of her… But Stan would not have it.

  “And who is this handsome fella here?” Barbara asked looking up at Hitta.

  “This is William…” I gave Hitta an apologetic look for using his real name over her head. “William, this is Grandmother Barbara.”

  He went down to one knee next to her wheelchair so that she didn’t have to strain her neck looking up at him.

  “It’s very nice to meet you, ma’am,” he said taking her hand.

  I chuckled because right there before my eyes, Grandmother Barbara blushed.

  “Ohh! It’s nice meeting you too, shugga. My, my, my, you sure are a big fella, aren’t you?” she told him actually rubbing her hand up his muscled arm. I shook my head…Goodness.

  Barbara wanted us to sit with her. She said that she didn’t want to be next to all of these snobby folks who couldn’t care less for Diana…Including Stan, who for the most part, stayed away from us because of Hitta.

  True to his word, Hitta did not leave my side. He stood there and held my hand as Diana’s guests expressed their condolences for our loss to Jessie, Barbara and me. When Jessie and I had to go to the bathroom, he stood outside the door and waited for us. When I started feeling a little too hot, he went and got me a cup of water, but then the water made my stomach feel queasy, so he took it away.

  He was my fierce protector and I was so grateful to have him there.

  “Are you coming back to the house for the repast?” Barbara asked me as we all headed back to our vehicles at the cemetery. One of the workers from her nursing home was wheeling her back to the transport vehicle.

  I went to shake my head, but she grabbed my hand. “Please, Angel. You and Jessie are the only real family I have here. It’s bad enough my baby Westly couldn’t make it. Please don’t abandon me and leave me with all these strange people.”

  The desperation in her voice was real. I wanted to tell her no. The last thing I wanted to do was to go back to that house. Plus, Stan had threatened to call the police on Hitta if he stepped one foot on his property.

  Barbara squeezed my hand… “Don’t abandon me…”

  “Of course, I won’t abandon you, sweetheart. Jessie and I will meet you there.” My concerned gaze went to Hitta who frowned when he saw the look in my eyes.

  “Hell no, Angel. I am not letting you and Jessie go in there alone!” he told me twenty minutes later as we pulled up to my old house. The driveway and the street were full of the cars of the well-wishers. Barbara’s nurse and handler were helping her out of the van right in front.

  “Please, it will only be for an hour. I just want to make an appearance and then we can leave. Grandmother Barbara was the only one in this family who was kind to Jessie and me, I can’t abandon her. One hour and then we can go… and never have to step foot in this place again.”

  His nostrils flared angrily as he exhaled. “I don’t like this!”

  I rubbed his arm soothing him. “I know, but there
are a lot of people here. Stan will be on his best behavior.”

  He pointed at me. “When you come out, you tell me what’s up with this dude.”

  I bit my bottom lip…and he shook his head. “Well then, no deal…I’m going in there with you.”

  If he went in there Stan will keep his word and call the police, I know him. I didn’t want Hitta arrested. But it seemed that no matter what decision I made, it was bound to happen. If I told Hitta what Stan had done to me, then he was going to confront him…I know him. He was going to hit Stan or something. And then by the time Stan’s judge friends got done with Hitta, he would be going to jail for a long time.

  But if I didn’t agree and he went in here, he will be going to jail a lot sooner. I exhaled…I was damned if I didn’t and damned if I did.

  “Fine…I’ll tell you everything.” My words were barely over a whisper.

  “You got one hour. If you’re not out in that time, I’m coming in there…I don’t give a f*** what stiff a** have to say about it.”

  **********

  When I was a little girl, my Greatie told me that faith is having belief in that which is not seen. The hand of God is an invisible thing that has a tangible effect. One never knows what way that hand will lead you, but the question is…

  Had I known that my life was getting ready to change so drastically in one hour, would I have still gotten out of Hitta’s truck and gone into that house? Or was it always The Ancient of Days will for my world to implode, throwing me into utter darkness?

  Can we as humans really control our destinies or are we just walking out a path that has already been paved? These are all questions that I will find myself asking…

  And now looking back, I can’t say that I would change a thing…because I now know that everything that happened that day…had to happen exactly like it did.

  When Jessie and I walked through the door, I once again found myself feeling queasy and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why. Not only was I back in a place that was full of negative memories, I felt Stan’s hungry gaze zone in on me instantly.

  I did my best to ignore him as I stayed by Barbara’s side speaking with the guests. Jessie had wanted to go to the back yard and play with a few of the other children and I let her, making sure to keep an eye on her.

  Barbara was speaking with a few of Diana’s old classmates and I was only half listening. So, when she spilled a little bit of her drink on her dress, I volunteered to go get her a napkin out of the kitchen.

  As I was walking down the hall, I cried out when Stan came up behind me, roughly grabbing my arm and shoving me inside of his office locking the door behind him.

  “That thug of yours should have listened to me and not set foot on my property. Sit!” he spat as he shoved me down into one of the chairs on the other side of his desk before he turned his computer monitor around so that I could see it.

  I started to jump back up out of the seat and run, but what I saw on the computer monitor made me pause.

  It was footage of Hitta leaning against a police car being handcuffed. He was surrounded by six or seven cops, who all had their guns pointed at him. The veins protruded from his neck as he barked something at them, but they weren’t listening to him at all.

  I ran to the window needing to see with my own eyes instead of through the lens of a camera and sure enough, several of the officers were putting him in the back of a squad car while the others still pointed their guns at him.

  With tears in my eyes, I whipped around. "You can't do this!"

  “Sure I can,” he said from where he was now sitting in his office chair watching me.

  I headed for the door. “That’s okay! I’ll just go down there and tell them they’ve made a mistake…”

  “Before you go, you should know that I’m soon to be Jessie’s guardian.”

  That brought my march to a screeching halt. “What are you talking about?”

  He reached into his desk and pulled out some pictures throwing them on top. “A week ago, a Jane Doe was brought into the hospital.”

  I picked up one of the pictures off the desk and my hand began to shake as I looked down at it.

  “It’s Trina… Her throat was slit, her teeth, and her hands removed. Had I not known what she looked like, she would have slipped through the system. My attorney has already begun the guardianship paperwork.”

  It felt like someone had snatched the rug from under my feet. I sat down in the chair before I fell down as my mind raced to comprehend the information that had just been stuffed into it.

  Trina was dead!

  I looked back at the picture in my hand…It was her. She lay on a metal table with her throat slit. There was a look of horror in her eyes, like the last thing she’d seen had terrified her.

  I put my shaking hand over my lips. “Oh my God!”

  Jessie’s mom was dead!

  My gaze flew up to Stan’s. “Wait! Did you say you’re trying to get guardianship of Jessie?”

  He grinned reminding me of the rat he was. “Not trying, my sweet Angel…It’s as good as done.”

  I shot out of my chair. “The hell it is! I’m going to fight you!”

  He laughed. “Come now, do you think any judge in America is going to give an unmarried, twenty-one-year-old young lady guardianship over someone like me? Please…use your brain.”

  “What about her father? Westly will have guardianship!”

  He sat up in his chair, his greedy eyes widening in his zeal. “I’ll challenge it! He’s unfit…I’ll demand the judge give him a drug test.”

  I hurt my brain trying to think of a way around that. There is no way in hell I could let Jessie end up in the hands of this pervert.

  No way in hell!

  “You might as well give up, Angel and just ask me what I want.” The satisfied smile he wore on his face made me want to kill him.

  I eased back in my chair, feeling like dying myself…All of my worst fears were happening, Hitta was being put in jail, Trina was dead…and my baby was going to end up in the hands of this pervert, forced to live the life I did.

  “What do you want?” At this point, I would be willing to do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen.

  He sat back in his chair content with the knowledge that he had me right where he wanted me.

  “Regardless of what you may think, I’m not a monster. Unlike that-that thug that you’ve let put his hands on you…you’ve let taste your sweetness, that same sweetness you’ve always denied me.” For a moment it looked as if he was going to cry.

  “I would have given you everything…”

  I looked away from him, not wanting to hear any of his B.S…

  “But at last…I can’t have what I want.” My gaze went back to him. His mouth turned into a sneer. “But neither can he…”

  I frowned confused… “What are you talking about?” I wanted to say crazy a**…But decided against riling him up.

  “It’s simple. If you want me to withdraw my paperwork for Jessie’s guardianship, you agree that you will never see your thug again. If you so much as walk into a room where he is, I will know, and I will take Jessie from you. Maybe she’ll be kinder to me than you were.”

  At the moment I would have given anything to have only half of Hitta’s skill. I wanted to pound this man’s face into the ground. I balled up my fist as I struggled to stay in my chair and not try and do just that.

  “You are a sick bastard!”

  He chuckled. “Maybe I am… But I’ll be a sick bastard with a beautiful young girl to play with if you don’t agree to my terms.”

  “And what about Hitta?”

  “What about him!?” he spat.

  “Drop the charges and get the police to release him.”

  He stared out the window for a moment before his gaze came back to mine.

  “So, it’s true then?”

  “What’s true?”

  “You love him.”

  I exhaled before s
haking my head. “No, I don’t love him. I just don’t want him going to jail because of me.”

  I could tell by the way his eyes lit up that it was the right answer. Had I told this maniac how I really felt about Hitta he would have no doubt done his best to make sure he stayed in jail for as long as he possibly could.

  “Fine, I’ll drop the charges. But you take Jessie and leave town. So help me God, if that bastard so much as looks at you one more time…You will never see your niece again. I will have eyes on him constantly.”

  “What about my business, Stan? How am I just going to pack up and walk away from that?”

  He grinned as he shrugged. “I don’t know, my sweet. I guess you’re going to have to ask yourself what’s more important, your precious Tea Shop or Jessie.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I hated the fact that my voice quivered on the verge of tears that had turned into a knot in my throat.

  The grin left his face as pure evil replaced it. “I want to deny you pleasure, just like you did me. I want you to know what it feels like to have to go without what you’ve come to crave. Maybe next time I see you, you’ll be kinder to me.” He sat back in his chair.

  “What do you say? Do we have a deal or not?”

  So, I guess my Greatie had been right because the next words that came out of my mouth broke me in half.

  “We have a deal…”

  To Be Continued…

  Mmmm mmm mmmm… Hitta’s in jail and Angel has just agreed to stay away from him and walk away from the Tea Shop in order to keep little Jessie out of the hands of a perverted child molester. How had it come to this? But more importantly, what the hell is Hard Hitta going to do when he finds out his Angel has flown the coop? Pick up Hitta’s Tea Maker pt. 2 to find out….

  For Those of You who have not read Hitta’s best friend Rome Book…Falling For Rome, which is the second book in the Law Boy’s Series behind Coming For What’s Mine…Here is a sample of what you’ve missed…

  Beautiful Surprise