“Right!”
Before she could register what he’d said, the hose jerked out of her hand as a noxious flood of sewage and gray water exploded out the end of it, drenching her from the knees down.
“Tyler!” she screamed. “Close the valve! Close the fucking valve!”
“What—oh no!”
The flood trickled to a stop as he shut off the valve. She stood there in shock, praying this was just a wine-induced nightmare, that she would awaken in the RV in Mammoth Hot Springs with a hangover.
Tyler slowly walked over, a horrified look on his face. She was vaguely aware of laughter from some of the other RV operators in line, but it was Tyler’s horrified expression she focused on.
“Tyler,” she whispered. “Go stand by the valve.” Well, she was already covered with a mixture of piss, shit, dishwater, and shower runoff, might as well get this over with.
Although she was upset her favorite sneakers were now full of nasty water. The jeans would wash.
“Um, right, love.” He scurried back to the valve panel.
In her soaked sneakers, she squished back over to the dump tank outlet. She finished reading the instructions, which included an admonition not to open the RV’s dump tank valve until the outlet hose was firmly inserted into the dump tank outlet. She then inserted the hose into the dump tank outlet and walked back to the RV.
“Now, Tyler. Okay.”
“Um, right, love.” He opened the valve and emptied the dump tank. Meanwhile, she stripped off her nasty gloves and, ignoring how she was now chilly in the cool mountain air as well as stank worse than a septic tank, she put on a fresh pair of nitrile gloves and pulled out the external fresh water hose from its access panel. Doing the best she could, she kicked off her sneakers, hosed them out, then hosed herself off. She rinsed the dump tank pad, guiding the nasty water into the dump hose outlet. Then she returned the hose to its storage place before checking on the dump tank hose.
“Is it empty, Tyler?” she quietly asked.
“Um, yes, love. I believe it is. Are you—”
“Shut. The fuck. Up.”
“Yes, dear.”
She made sure the valve was firmly closed, retrieved the sewage hose and stowed it, then closed the access panel.
“Tyler, do you think you can drive the RV off the tank and down there without wrecking it?” she whispered.
“Um, yes, of course, but don’t you—”
“Tyler!” she shrieked. “I’m covered in shit! I’m not getting into the RV like this!”
He looked horrified. “Um, right. Sorry, love. I’m so—”
“Shut the fuck up and get in the fucking RV and move it!”
She faintly heard male laughter behind her. She turned and glared at the man driving the RV behind her. He was standing outside his vehicle. When she wheeled around, he shut up and got into his RV.
She grabbed her sodden sneakers and, in her wet socks and smelly, soaked jeans, stormed off the dump tank pad. She heard Tyler start their RV and didn’t bother looking back to see if he moved it without wrecking it or not. She waited until he got it moved to the far edge of the parking area to walk over to it. He met her at the door.
“Um, well, love. What can I do?”
She had two choices, scream or whisper. There was no longer any middle of the road. She chose whisper so it wouldn’t scare her kids or the bison in the park. “Go get a garbage bag,” she whispered. “And a beach towel. And a bottle of antibacterial hand soap.” She walked back to the fresh water hose access panel, opened it, and pulled the hose out. By the time Tyler rushed out of the RV with the requested items, she’d already started hosing herself down again.
“Hold the towel up so I don’t flash everyone,” she whispered.
He did, and she quickly stripped off her jeans, socks, and underwear. Fortunately, the nasty water hadn’t reached higher than her knees. She rinsed herself off, used half the bottle of hand soap to clean up, then rinsed off again. She wrapped the towel around her waist.
“Put my dirty clothes and my sneakers in the bag. We need to do laundry. Find out where the nearest Laundromat is, if it’s here or at Fishing Bridge. That is where we’re going. To get the fucking laundry done.” She delivered all of this in a whisper.
“Yes, dear.”
She climbed into the RV. Andrew sat at the table with Mikey. “Are you all right, Nev?”
“No.” She went into their bedroom, grabbed clean clothes, then took a shower. By the time she emerged from the shower, Tyler was back inside the RV.
“There’s a laundry facility here, love,” Tyler said.
“Good,” she whispered. “Go get all our laundry, including my sneakers and stuff, and go wash them. All. Now.”
“Right.” He scurried off to gather everything.
He left five minutes later.
She collapsed on the sofa. Adam walked over to her. “Are you okay, Mommy?”
“Mommy’s very aggravated and frustrated right now, honey.”
“At Daddy?”
“At the world.” She looked at him and forced a smile. She pulled him to her and hugged him. “Want to go back to the supervolcano exhibit and hit the gift shops again?”
“Okay!”
“Go put your shoes on and we need to walk Harley.”
“Yes, Momma.”
Andrew smirked. “Retail therapy?”
“Fuckin’ A, Dad. Fuckin’ A.”
* * * *
Tyler didn’t feel any better when Tom wouldn’t quit laughing after he related the story to him while sitting there waiting for their laundry to finish.
“Ty, are you shitting me… Wait…” Tom’s voice dissolved into laughter again. “Hey, Eddie, this’ll cheer you up.”
Tyler patiently waited for Tom to relate the story to Eddie. When he heard Eddie burst into laughter in the background, he finally spoke up. “Yes, right. Fine. Very good. Laugh at the imbecile. I’m already in enough trouble as it is with Nevvie. I certainly don’t need you slitting my throat as well. Should I hold out my wrists so you can open veins in them to bleed me dry?”
“I’m sorry, Ty,” he said, laughing and not sounding a bit sorry at all. “But seriously? Come on. Even you have to admit this is hysterical. Did she neuter you yet?”
“No. I wouldn’t be surprised if she and Adam are trying to max out our American Express card at the gift shop even as we speak.”
“Yeah, well, it’s just money.” He finally stopped laughing. “Hey, think of it this way, you can work it into a book somewhere.”
He’d already thought about that, even as he was watching Nevvie hose the shit out of her shoes on top of the dump tank. In fact, he felt more than a little guilty over the fact that he had at least three really good scenes already worked out in his mind for a totally new book before the laundry even hit the spin cycle.
At Nevvie’s expense, but still…
“If I disappear somewhere between here and Seattle, you’ll understand why,” Tyler said.
“Yeah, and I’ll alibi her, too, Evil Genius.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Well, try to stay on her good side. You have to admit, after leaving her at Mitchell, springing a puppy on her, and giving her a shit bath, she’s taking it all pretty damn well.”
He heard Eddie burst into another round of laughter in the background. “Maybe I should sleep on the roof of the RV tonight,” Tyler said.
“It might be safer.”
“Yes, quite.”
“Love you. Tell her I love her, too.”
“I will. Love you, too. Best to Eddie.” He sat back in his chair and looked at the spiral notebook he’d brought with him. He’d already filled several pages with handwritten notes.
He smiled. It wouldn’t be a half-bad book at that.
And, to help the situation and soothe whatever wrath Nevvie would undoubtedly—and completely justifiably—deliver upon him when he returned, he’d suddenly hit upon the solution to the plot is
sues in the book he was currently working on.
He let out a deep sigh. It would be worth taking anything she’d dish out, and more.
He’d earned it.
* * * *
There were several new bags on the table, full of items from the Canyon gift shops, when Tyler returned to the RV with the clean laundry, including her sneakers. Which were still wet, because he didn’t run them through a dryer, but at least they were clean and no longer a biohazard.
“Love, I’ll call Thomas and tell him your size and the style and have him ship us some overnight to the campground at Fishing Bridge.”
Stretched out on the sofa, she waved the suggestion off. “Don’t worry about it.” She held up her feet, which now sported new hiking shoes. “We went to the outfitter shop. I’ll get new sneakers somewhere. When those dry off, they’ll be wearable.”
He set the basket down on the table. “Are you still cross with me?”
She crooked her finger at him to call him over. He leaned in and she kissed him. “Yes,” she said, “but I’m not going to take it out on you. I took it out on the credit cards.” She smiled.
He shook his head. “I love you, angel. You have no idea how much.”
“Yeah, I love you, too, Evil Genius. You’re lucky I do. I would have killed anyone else.”
They got moving again. There were other sites they wanted to see in the Canyon area, but they would come back and explore them in the Honda after they parked the RV at the campground. Nevvie let Adam sit on the sofa with Andrew. He stared out the windows and took lots of pictures of the landscape.
“Momma, this doesn’t look like Florida.”
She glanced back at him with a smile. “I would hope not. It’s not Florida.”
“I noticed it all smells like Christmas trees.”
“That’s because of all the pine trees around. They’re different than the pine trees we have in Florida.”
“Is Daddy still behind us?”
She glanced in her side mirrors. “Yes, he is.” She suspected Tyler would be glued to her ass for fear of pissing her off if they got separated. The truth was, she was already over it. Finding out from Tom that Pete’s condition had already been upgraded had put her in a better mood. She knew damn well that was far more important than her having to take a shower after a shit bath.
They soon arrived at Fishing Bridge without further incident and after Tyler got them checked in, they parked the RV and got it set up.
She stared at it. “It’s nice to have a home port, so to speak.”
“If you want,” Tyler said, “Cody, Wyoming, isn’t very far to the east. We could drive there and go shopping for new shoes.”
She laughed and hugged him. “Seriously, I’m okay. I’m not mad at you. Anymore.” It was growing close to dark. “I had a reality check when talking to Tommy while you were gone.” She stared into Tyler’s blue eyes. In the back of her mind, she’d never be able to exorcise the image of him lying on their kitchen floor, eyes closed, not breathing.
Heart not beating.
Peggy jumping on him and starting CPR, screaming at Nevvie to call 911—
“It doesn’t matter, Ty,” she said, meaning it with all her heart and wanting to get that last image out of her mind. “It was an accident.”
He gathered her into his arms. “You are an extraordinary woman.”
“Yeah, well, you haven’t got the AMEX bill yet.”
He laughed. “I’ll treasure it always. Besides, I’ll take it to the CPA. Maybe we can deduct some of it as research.”
Chapter Thirteen
At the Everglades Correctional Institution outside of Miami, Florida, the group of men and women forming the parole board had convened that morning in the hearing room. The prisoner was brought in and seated at a table before them. With severe budget cuts and facilities closing, they were under state mandates to try to reduce the number of incarcerated inmates without compromising public safety.
A man seated in the center of the group spoke up. “Mr. LaRogue, do you have anything you’d like to say to this parole board?”
His lawyer, a public defender, did. “Mr. LaRogue has been a model prisoner while incarcerated. He has taken advantage of every opportunity to better himself available, including earning his GED and college credits towards a degree.”
The parole board chairman consulted his file.
The assistant state attorney, Jim Keller, spoke up. Only on week three of his job, he’d received the case file, along with twenty-four others, a mere two hours earlier. “Mr. LaRogue has a past history of arrests in three states for assault, usually while under the influence of alcohol. He tried to kill the victim in this case, Ms…” He had to stop and consult the file. “Ms. Nevaeh Barton. He viciously stalked her to her home, broke in, and attacked her.”
The head of the parole board consulted his notes. “Do you have any victim impact statements, or is there anyone here today who would like to testify in this matter?”
Keller consulted his file notes. “My office has been unable to contact the victim in this case, Ms. Nevaeh Barton. I can provide past victim impact statements regarding this matter. Based upon the facts in the case, and the severity of the crime, our office recommends no parole.”
“I believe we already have those past victim impact statements, Mr. Keller.”
After more back and forth between the attorneys and the parole board members, the parole board chair nodded. “We’ll let you know our decision within two weeks. As you can imagine, our caseload is rather heavy.”
Alex LaRogue sat quietly and didn’t say much unless he was asked a direct question. The advice he’d received from fellow inmates was to look contrite, be polite, and say as little as possible in as polite a way as possible.
Inside, he seethed. Next time I get my hands on that fucking bitch and her two fag boys, none of them will walk away able to testify against me.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, after checking in with Tom and finding out Pete’s condition was still improving, Nevvie made a conscious vow to herself to try to not be a bitch to Tyler, no matter how much of a dumbass he was.
He hadn’t meant to dump shit all over her. She never should have had him help her. That was her first mistake. And she couldn’t blame him for the puppy, either.
Although leaving her and Dad in Mitchell was totally his fault. But she had forgiven him for that.
After eating breakfast and cleaning up, they packed the kids into the Honda and headed north to explore. Today, they would spend the day exploring the northeast quadrant of the park. Tomorrow, the southeast, including an extended stop at West Thumb Geyser Basin.
By the time lunch rolled around and they stopped to eat at Canyon Village again, she was in probably the best mood of the whole trip.
Tyler noticed. He looked across the table at her from where he was trying to get Mikey to eat a banana. “Are you enjoying yourself, love? You seem less stressed today.”
“Yes, Ty, I’m enjoying myself.”
“I’m enjoying myself, too, Mommy!” Adam chirruped.
Andrew smiled. “I must say, this has been fun. I’m not going to want to return to England.”
“Do you have to, Grandpa?” Adam asked.
“Yeah,” Nevvie blurted out. “Do you have to?”
“What?”
She looked at Tyler, then back at Andrew. “Move over here, Dad. Permanently. You’re retired. We’ll pay for it. Right, Ty?”
He nodded. “Of course we would, Dad.”
“And,” Nevvie continued, hope building in her heart, “we’ve sort of talked about building a bigger house. Or we can help you find a place of your own, if you want.”
“I couldn’t impose on you like that,” Andrew said.
“What imposition? Dad, we love you and we want you here.” She looked down at Adam, then Mikey. “I want my kids to have a grandpa in their lives.”
Andrew quickly brushed at his eyes with his hand. “Well,
we can certainly discuss it when we finish our vacation. But why don’t we just enjoy the trip first before we even think about that.”
“Yay!” Adam said. “Grandpa Andy gonna live with us!”
Tyler smiled. “Let’s hope so, son.”
* * * *
Tom grabbed a cloth grocery bag from the house and headed over to the post office. He’d stop by Eddie’s house and walk their dog, Tom-Tom, on his way back home.
When he opened the post office box, he softly swore. It was packed full. Without bothering to look at any of it, he pulled it all out, jammed it into the bag, half filling it, and closed the box again. He tossed it onto the passenger seat. They could deal with it all when they got home. Most of it was likely junk or fan mail for Tyler anyway. Nevvie had set up all their bills to be paperless and paid them all online. So any mail they received while they were gone didn’t need their attention.
Tom-Tom greeted him with a happy bark at the front door when he let himself in with the spare key Eddie and Pete had given them. Tom spent a moment petting him. “Guess what, buddy? Your daddy’s going to be okay, the doctors say. And it looks like we’ve got a new pal for you to play with.” The yellow Lab plopped his furry butt down on the tile, his tail incessantly wagging.
“Let’s get you walked.” Tom took him out on the leash, taking him down to the end of the street and back and making sure to pick up after him. Then he took him out onto their screened-in lanai and played fetch with him for a few minutes. “Okay, I need to get back to your other daddy. I need to take him lunch.” He got the dog settled.
Their lives would be changed, that’s for sure. Nevvie had sent him several pictures of their newest addition. The little bugger was adorable.
He stopped by his house next, just a few minutes away, to dump the bag of mail. He noticed the answering machine light was blinking as well.
Tommy thought about playing it, then decided not to. Fuck it. Anyone who needs to get hold of us has our cell numbers. After quickly checking the National Hurricane Center’s site to see where the storm was and to view its current forecasted track, he headed back out the door.
Love Slave for Two Collection [Box Set 7] (Love Slave for Two .5-4) Page 104