by JQ Jones
“Good night, CJ. Thank you,” she said. She yawned his name.
“You’re welcome. Night, Lil Bit,” he said, throwing his leg over hers to cover her with his body.
Chapter Eight:
Those of My Kind
Weather canceled CJ’s proposed trip to Paris, so the next day, they checked out of the hotel. The management was no less solicitous as they left than when they checked out and arranged for a car to take them to the airport.
The flight back across the pond was uneventful. Iona and CJ talked. They argued politics and religion. They discussed business and strategies. They lightly discussed their past. Iona skimmed hers while CJ skipped total areas of his own.
“When did you decide not to get married this summer?” Iona said. She nibbled on a cheese and fruit platter. Big brown eyes clashed with green. She laughed at his expression.
“I’m a computer geek, CJ. Before I went after the contract with Okey I researched your entire family. Like I said, you’re a loud talker. Why the end of a decade-old engagement?”
CJ nodded slowly. A slow smile loosening up his tight face, he worked his way to the bar and poured them both shots of tequila and brought the bottle back to sit on the table between their seats. He pulled a bowl of limes out of the fridge. He slammed the bottle, the limes, and a shaker of salt on the table in front of the side-by-side chairs they sat in.
“Now, Lil Bit, you’re gonna tell me all about how you came to be what you are. Then I’ll tell you about me and Liz. You presented yourself to my company about three years ago as a Cambridge educated expert in…”
Iona held up a finger. “McGill University in Montreal.” She took a shot, shuddered, and put down her glass. He took his shot and poured out two more.
“I emancipated myself after my parents and grandmother were killed, got my GED that year, did online from West Virginia for my undergrad in entrepreneurial studies, two years. Picked environmental studies for my master’s and to do that I found a student who was enrolled in McGill and paid him to make sure he went to every lecture, kept his computer pointed at the professor, and taped it. I submitted my dissertation for review. It was highly ranked and I passed. Did the same for the doctoral and passed. Started writing for journals.”
He slammed his shot. She followed. Both glasses were refilled.
“Liz and I have been engaged to marry mostly because I feel my biological clock ticking and I want a family. I thought I wanted a family like everybody else I know. We marry the right person to please the right people to have the right children who go to the right schools and the whole fucking circus starts all over. We don’t love each other. Never have, never would have, but that’s pretty much the way things happen in the social set I belong to. You marry into the right family, have a few kids, and have lovers on the side. All very discreet and civilized.”
They slammed shots and poured two more.
“I had peer-reviewed creds, money from my parents’ life insurance, but no real job. I was nineteen and knew that I would have to make a living. I did not want to leave my house. It hurt too much, so I searched for the most progressive big energy companies and targeted them to work for. Lied about a few things and went to work for Okey. You’re my only client and after this bonus I’m pretty set for life.” Iona felt fine, eating slices of cheese, fruit, and tequila, nothing better.
“So that makes you twenty-four?” CJ leaned forward in his chair.
“I’ll be twenty-four in June. You’re thirty-nine on October 21st,” Iona said.
“So you really are a goddamned baby.”
“I am if you want to feel like a pedophile. I can pretend to be a teenager. I’m a grown-ass woman and I always do what I want. I didn’t expect to have sex with you, but it is kinda cool.” She smiled broadly.
“It is kinda cool,” he said.
“I won’t be your mistress, though.”
“I don’t want you to be.”
“Oh, cool. We’re on the same page then. I go home and we go back to being business associates. Right?”
“No, we’re not going back to what we were. You’re going home with me. We spend some time finishing up this project. I finish breaking it off with Liz. I’m too old for you, but you’re too crazy to live on that damn mountain alone. What if somebody tries to rape you or something?”
“Somebody already tried.”
CJ cocked an eyebrow.
“I told you about that. I didn’t know if I was a virgin because Donald Ray Todd came to the house when I was sixteen and tried to rape me.”
“I do not recall you telling me about Donald Ray Todd trying to hurt you when you were sixteen. What happened exactly?” CJ took his shot and poured another for himself, which he also drank, and poured yet another one.
“He came to the house, this was before I got the geese and Buster and Bunny, and forced his way in, had me down on the ground, and had his slimy little willy all over my leg. I told him that he was stronger. He could rape me but I knew where he lived, drank, and hunted, and that one day I’d shoot him and feed his body to Mr. Pugh’s hogs. He zipped up and left.” She patted his hand and grinned.
“That will never happen again,” CJ said through clinched teeth.
“It didn’t happen again. I think Donald Ray told everybody that I was crazy or something because people started crossing the street the few times I went to town so I just stopped going. Jeff does my grocery shopping and the rest comes by FedEx or UPS.” Iona moved closer to CJ. She yawned, flipping her dreads over the back of her chair. She leaned back just to rest her head for a minute.
“I can take care of myself. Just get me home and we’re back to where we were.” Her eyes closed. “I wear my big-girl panties all the time now.”
CJ kissed her. He placed a light wool blanket around her sleeping form, gently placing her on the pillows of the king-size bed, climbing into the bed with her. “Yeah, you do.”
* * * *
Iona felt hot, sizzling light shoot stings of bright pain through her face. She lightly touched her cheeks to see if there were flames. She hadn’t the strength to open her eyes. Her lids weighed at least a couple of pounds each. Pinpricks of heat flashed behind tightly squeezed eyes. She couldn’t press her eyes shut tight enough. She couldn’t open them because they wouldn’t obey the command. She couldn’t walk because the ground wasn’t moving according to known principles of gravity. She couldn’t stay motionless because the plane had stopped and people were leaving.
“I’m in the Christian Hell.”
CJ’s chest rumbled against her left side as he carried her out of the jet. She cracked an eye and sharp, pinpointed pain exploded in her head, slowly moving to the rest of her body. She inched her hand from where it lay in limp defeat to pinch open her eyelids that were staying closed against the brightness. The sway of CJ’s swagger was making her nauseous, but closing her eyes made it worse.
She squinted open an eye, saw Clint standing beside a Jeep, big, bold, and happy in the sunlight, and had to slam her eye shut against the blinding pain. CJ stopped beside his cousin.
“Hey, CJ. How are you, little cousin? Have a good time in London? Did you make it to Paris?” Clint looked closely at Iona and took off his sunglasses, placing them on carefully on her face. She tried to say thank you but her voice wasn’t working. Clint laughed and she groaned. CJ joined Clint, laughing.
“Lil Bit had a ball in London. Didn’t make it to Paris. Don’t throw darts with her. She’s a phenom,” CJ said.
“Please be quiet. My hair hurts,” she whispered.
“Got a hat, cuz?” CJ said. Clint tossed him the keys to the four wheeler, then tossed a smaller black cowboy hat to him.
“Pub?”
“Shots. Tequila,” CJ said. “It was the only way to get her to talk.” They laughed again, stopping when Iona groaned. Clint pulled bottled water, orange, apple, and cranberry juices, and milk from a cooler standing open at the back of the car. They stood lined up on the bumper. Iona too
k one of everything but the milk, placing them in each cup holder, and when she ran out of space, she put them on the floor beside her feet. She gingerly pulled back her hair and arranged the hat to shade out more sun then she crawled into the front seat. It took her a few tries to click the seat belt into the place. She slowly reclined the seat.
“Damn, CJ, she’s still smells like a distillery. Is she old enough to drink? You gonna have children’s services knocking on your door. Do you know what’re you doing?”
“Ending a mistake. You got a ride home from here, cuz?” CJ adjusted the seat to fit his six-foot-three-inch frame. Iona groaned, swigged a drink of water plus cranberry juice, and pulled her hat over her face. CJ searched the glove compartment for aspirin found some generic pain killers, shook out two, and handed them to Iona. Iona took the bottle, got three more, and swallowed all of them, groaned, closed her eyes, and leaned back in the seat.
Clint laughed. “I’ll definitely be back at the ranch in a few hours to see the shit hit the fan. Keep her close. She’s too special for you to give up, but, CJ, if you don’t handle it right, I will make a play.”
CJ growled. Clint took a step back. “Remember that when they come for you, CJ. Because that’ll keep you straight.”
* * * *
Cloth blankets plus blankets of tiny pinpricks of light greeted Iona as she cracked opened her eyes. The stars were bright and vibrant. She took off her sunglasses and realized that the dull headache had abated for a while but was still there.
“Where are we?” she croaked.
“Home. Hold on right there and I’ll come and get you,” CJ said. People moved around the truck, gathering luggage and bags and rushing them into the house.
Iona readjusted her hat and snuggled into the seat until CJ came from the house, scooped her up, and carried her up steep porch steps and further up even steeper house steps.
“You do know I can walk, right?” Iona spoke in a soft, raspy voice. CJ laughed, continuing up a tall stairway, not stopping when a thin Hispanic woman stood in front of him with hands on hips. He circumvented her and the audible heavy sigh she released as he stomped up the stairs.
Iona cracked both eyes open to glance around until he could lay her on a soft bed. He grasped her boots, pulling them off and tossing them into the corner. CJ took more time with her clothes but not much. They, too, were tossed into the corner. He placed her in the middle of the bed and wrapped her in a soft blanket.
“Sleep well, Lil Bit. Tomorrow will probably be a motherfucker.” CJ slipped out of his clothes and joined her.
“I love you, CJ. You’re a bombastic sommabitch, but I do love you,” Iona muttered as she rolled over on her side. “Sleep with me. If only for one night. I’ll go home tomorrow when I feel like a human being. Please, CJ, hold me.”
CJ climbed into the bed naked and smoothed his hands over her from breast to pussy. “I’ll always be there for you, Lil Bit. I’ll make it right. You belong to me.”
* * * *
“Not like you to bring home women, CJ. Who is she? She looks about fifteen,” a voice asked in Spanish as they walked into the vestibule.
“This is Iona, Manny.” CJ tipped Iona toward a tall Hispanic woman. Her long, dark hair lay in a loose ponytail down her back. She stood with arms folded at the bottom of the steps with a half smile on her face.
“Oh, Madre de Dios, what about Marcus and Cheryl? Elizabeth called to tell me to get her room ready. When did she get a room here? It’s been over three years since she’s spent in time in Oklahoma much less the ranch. Makes sense now.” Manuela Mendez slowly shook her head and widened her smile.
“You owe me $1,000. Iona is definitely not old and dried up,” Manny said.
“You didn’t win. She’s not a four-hundred-pound geek with bad skin either.”
Manny laughed. “You can’t blame a girl for trying. What are you thinking?”
“I’m not right now, going on pure gut.”
“Good luck with that.”
Iona woke up with a headache and feeling worse than she ever had in her life. If she left her eyes closed, then she didn’t have to deal with what was going on.
Iona didn’t hear Buster, Bunny, or the geese. The bed was definitely not hers. In the background, she could hear a conversation in Spanish between CJ and a sultry-voiced woman was going on over her head. It ended five minutes later as CJ ushered the woman out of the room.
“You can open your eyes now, Lil Bit,” he said.
“It doesn’t seem to be a good idea,” she said clutching a pillow close to her head. “Where am I exactly?”
“Davis Ranch, Davis County, Oklahoma.”
“Imaginative nomenclature. Why am I not at my house? I do remember telling you on the plane that’s where I wanted to end up.” Iona’s voice was slightly muffled by the pillow.
“Now, Lil Bit.”
“Cut the Lil Bit shit, CJ. This is your ranch where your parents live and where your fucking fiancée comes from time to time. If I translated correctly, she’s due here soon. Why am I here? You asshole! If my head didn’t feel like a fucking drum corps parade, I’d be able to take this shit, but it does and I don’t need this.” Her mad progressed to livid very quickly.
“Let me tell—”
“Don’t. Tell. Me. Shit. Just get me home.” The pillow muffled the vehemence of her voice.
“You’re with me until I can get everything straightened up. Then I’ll take you home.”
Iona interrupted. “CJ, I think it’s best if you leave me alone. I’ma cut your fucking balls off the next chance I get.”
“I don’t doubt that, Lil Bit, but let me give you something for your head before you do.”
“As soon as the room stops spinning I’m going home,” she said.
“Take this.” CJ leveled Iona into an upright position, fed her two tablespoon of something, then helped Iona to the bathroom and into a waiting shower. CJ ducked a sponge and a washcloth before he escaped out of the room.
An hour later, Iona slowly followed her nose to the kitchen. She was dressed in her old jeans, long-sleeve red T-shirt, and Vans. All talk stopped when she walked in and gingerly hitched her way onto a kitchen stool lining the large breakfast island.
Clint and a Hispanic woman with beautiful brown eyes and a knowing smile stood at the edge of the kitchen island, watching. Clint grinned broadly, placing a glass of something brown with flecks of black floating in it.
“My father would use this to clean carbonators when I was young. It’s strong enough to take paint off, plus it tastes like shit but it’ll make you feel better. Don’t ask what’s in it. Trust me, you don’t want to know. Hold your nose and drink it all at once,” Clint said.
Iona frowned for as second and gulped down the concoction and only gagged once.
“She does that better’n you and CJ can,” the woman said. “I’m Manuela, Clint’s cousin. I’m housekeeper here. CJ had some business in town and wanted you to know that he’ll be back after dark. If you ask me, he didn’t want you to take a strip out of his hide.”
“And he would be right. May I have a ride to the airport? I’d like to go back home today. There’s a flight out at 1:15 this afternoon that would get me home,” Iona said. She’d been sitting with her head in her hands but realized that she felt much better. For the first time since entering the kitchen, she wanted to eat.
Manuela put a plate of eggs, bacon, toast, and jam in front of her. “It’ll make you feel better. CJ told me you prefer juice.”
“Thank you, Manuela, I appreciate it. When do we need to leave for the airport?”
“Sorry, Iona, I’m not getting in the middle of this. CJ was specific about you being here when he gets home. So I’m not gonna help you leave.” Clint sipped his coffee.
“Fair enough. After I talk to him tonight, will you take me tomorrow?”
“If you still want to go, I’ll take you tomorrow.”
“Thank you. This is great bread, by the way,” Iona s
aid as she finished her breakfast.
“Wanna see the ranch?” Clint asked. “Oh, you ride? Best way to see the ranch.”
“I do want to see the ranch, but since I don’t ride, I’ll just call my people at home and hang out and work on the deal until tomorrow,” Iona said.
She flopped down on the bed, pulled off her shoes, plumped the pillows, and called Jeff. On a Saturday, he’d be home unless he had a delivery.
“Nice to hear from you. How are you?” Jeff said.
Iona closed her eyes. The light still hurt her eyes. “Why isn’t Linc at the gym? He goes every week.”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Jeff said. “Cyn’s visiting. Yes, she and Linc are having a meeting.”
“Seriously, they’re having a meeting about me? Shit. Put me on speaker.”
“You sure?”
“Without a doubt.” With a soft click, Iona could hear Linc and Cyn continuing a quiet discussion in the background.
“How’s everybody? Family meeting without me?”
“I should have spanked you when you were little. How was your trip? Did you think to call while you were flying all over the place?” Cyn said.
“You ain’t my mama so you should quash the spanking shit. I had a great time. Saw a lot of London, hung out in a real English pub, and I went shopping. The deal was finalized. It’s my first one. I’m celebrating for a few days.” Iona pressed her hand over her eyes waiting for Linc to pounce on the brief pause in conversation.
“In Oklahoma? With a man you just met?”
“Yes, and yes.”
“Nothing I can say?”
“Nope.”
Laughter floated over the phone. “Got your first taste of feeling happy and can’t let it go. Girl, you should have done this when you were a teenager like the rest of us. But enjoy it while it lasts, baby sister,” Cyn said.