Joey hadn’t left them then. Pretending to still be out, he relayed everything that was going on to not just his dad, but Dylan as well. When they were caught—gunned down by the police was more like it—Joey, of course, was the only one to have survived. The police needed to blame it on someone, and Joey fit the bill.
Dad went to see Joey every day. His parents had come with him, but Joey asked them to stay away. No one to this day knew how hurt they’d been to be asked not to be with their son. Even Bennett hadn’t been allowed to visit his brother while he was awaiting trial.
When the trial was finally ready to begin, Dad had stood up with Dylan, and the two of them told everything that Joey had done to catch the real murderers. Even that, the word of such upstanding members of society, had done nothing but angered the police. A rich kid getting off because of his money was what they thought.
It wasn’t until Adrian had shown up with his secret service men and women and Mason that people started to sit up and listen. Oliver knew that he’d never forget what his son had said to the courtroom and to his brother Blake and Shadow that day.
“This young man is my nephew. He’s the son of my brother Blake and the renowned artist Shadow Whitfield. They took this young man not just from a broken home, but one that had been filled with drugs, money, and guns. In that house with this young child, eight at the time when he was found, was the body of not just his parents, but a sister and uncle that had died some days before. From drugs, all of them. Now, I want you to know something that few do. When he was found, there was not a dram of drugs in his body. There could have been—there was plenty enough to go around. Nor had he touched the drug money. When asked why, it wasn’t because he wasn’t allowed to. No one was there any longer to tell him no. He didn’t touch it because it was bad money. Something that he said to his father, Blake.” Adrian had looked around the courtroom. “Joey is being accused of being the driver of the car. Well, that statement is bogus. He doesn’t know how to. Not that he couldn’t learn, but the thought of driving after the accident that hurt his older brother when he was sixteen terrified him so much that he has not, as far as I know, been inside of a car since. And yet, in order to help the police, not only did he stay where he didn’t want to be, but he risked everything to make sure that one police officer was killed instead of more. Dylan, tell the courtroom how many guns were in the car when it was finally stopped.”
“There were six people not counting Joey.” She had pulled out a sheet of paper, but he knew as well as the rest of the family that she knew by heart what they’d retrieved. “There were twenty-three loaded handguns. Four shotguns, thirteen rifles, as well as a dozen hand grenades. When the car was stopped by killing the driver, the Molotov cocktails had blown, but we’re thinking there were as many as twenty of those. A waste of good liquor, if you ask me. In addition to that much firepower, there were ten vests of the military grade, as well as tickets for the six in the car to fly out to Spain. I’m assuming when they finished. There also wasn’t a ticket for Joey.”
“To me, and it might very well just be me, but it doesn’t sound like they planned for my nephew to live through this at all. Or, and this frightens me more than anything, they were going to kill him when they finished with him and leave him to take the blame. As much as I hate to say this, Your Honor, you’ve done just what the bandits wanted you to.” Adrian turned and winked at him before looking at Blake and Shadow. “His family, my family, has raised more than a dozen children who might well have been in the system. Not once have they ever asked for anything other than for their children, all of them, to be treated fairly and without prejudice. We can’t do this to a young man who has, without thought to his own safety, helped make sure that our town was safe that day.”
Then his dad had stood up. “Your Honor, all of what my grandson said is true. Joey here, he’s been my fishing buddy and friend for most of his life. If you take him away from me and his parents, I don’t know if I could live without him.” Dad had sobbed then, and so did most of the courtroom. “This here boy helped me pick out a pretty marker for my missus. He helped me set it, and then when I was resting from that, he went and planted some purple lilacs so she could smell them in the spring. I love all my grandchildren, every single one of them. But this boy here, he’s been my fishing buddy out there on the lake that you’ve fished in too. And the kid that got me up and moving when I didn’t have it in me to even eat. Don’t take him from us when he’s got so much more living to do. Good living. It’ll about kill us all if you do that to us.”
After the trial was dismissed, Joey didn’t go to his grandda like they all thought that he would, but to his mom and dad. He sobbed so hard that he’d had to sit on the floor. Joey hadn’t wanted them to see him behind bars. Joey had been so ashamed of where he’d been that he just couldn’t stand for the two people in the world that trusted and loved him without reproach to see him looking as if he was a bad person.
Oliver made his way into the kitchen then and found his own missus staring out at the two of them too. When he started to tell her that they should invite Joey to eat with them too, she went and figured out something he’d not thought of.
“They’re saying goodbye. The two of them. Ollie is making sure that Joey knows why he’s doing this, and making sure that he doesn’t miss him too much.” She turned to him then, her nose pink from blowing it and her eyes slightly red from the tears she’d shed for them. “Joey will go away again. He’ll come back, but not for a while. And while he’s gone, he’ll find him a mate and bring her home to us. They’ll live with us to be closer to Ollie.”
“Did Carter tell you that?” Eve told him no, she’d seen it in a dream. “I see. Well, then, I’m guessing by the time he returns, we should get the boys old rooms cleaned out. It’s sort of silly, I’m thinking now, to have kept them the way they did when they were boys.”
“They’ll use Ollie’s old room for their own. But we won’t touch it. Joey will want it just the way Ollie left it for a while.” He nodded and asked about the boys’ rooms. “Those will need to be ready for his children. All of them.”
Oliver believed her. Twice before she’d had a dream about something, and it had come to be true. While he didn’t think she had any magical powers, Oliver just didn’t want to ask. He’d make a fool of himself in some other way. But not this. Tomorrow, or better yet, next week, he’d have his sons come over and help him. It would be a good way for them to have something else to think about other than their grandda passing.
When the boys arrived, they were a somber bunch. Dad had been home for an hour and went to his room. He didn’t want to disturb him too much tonight, not with...well, things not being usual. But the boys were here asking about him. After knocking on his door, Dad asked him to come in.
“I’ve some cash here that I want you to give to them tomorrow. All the grandsons. Tell them I want them—”
“No. You have to give it to them. It’ll mean more to them, and you know as well as I do that I’m not going to be able to set foot in this room for a long time.” Dad nodded. “You’re really going to do it? You’re going to leave me?”
“No.” His relief was profound until he spoke again. “I’m not leaving anyone. I’m going to be with your momma. You’ve had more years and memories with me than you should have. We both know that. And don’t think of me as just dying either. I had to think hard on this, and I’m sick, Oliver. Sick and tired, and I just don’t want to live no more. You’re a young man, still in your prime. I was old and broken even before I was made this way. I want this. You should be happy that I’m going this way and not some other.”
“I know. But you’re all the family I have left.” Dad laughed. It was a surprised sounding sound, and Oliver joined him. “Yes, well, I guess that was a stupid statement. At last count, I think Eve and I have upwards of two hundred descendants. I should be more grateful for what I had with you instead of whining ab
out what I’m going to not have.”
“That’s the ticket.” Dad looked down at the steamer truck that he’d seen when he’d been a little boy. “I have some things in this that I want Joey to have. He’s leaving here for a time. I’m hoping that when he gets back, you’ll let him stay here with you for a time.”
Eve had been right. “He can stay here forever if he wants. Raise his family in this home. This is still a nice sturdy place to have children running around.” Dad thanked him. “You make your peace with him?”
“Yes, in our own way.” Nodding, Oliver looked around the room. It looked exactly like it had when it had been their bedroom when Mom had still been living. “Oliver. A man could not have asked for a better son than you. I want you to know that I have never been more proud of you than when you started having them boys for me, and you taught them that because there was money, there was no reason for you to be giving it away to them. You did right by them. And now they’re doing right by you. I see it every day when they come here, each of them, to see if you need them for something. I love you, Oliver.”
The two of them hugged tightly, and then each of them pulled out their handkerchiefs and wiped their faces. Going into the kitchen, a room that had always been a gathering place at his home, he watched his sons deal with the impending death of the greatest man he knew.
Chapter 11
Blake looked around the table. Mostly, he knew they were all thinking about what was going to happen later tonight. He had talked to Shadow about it, then her grannie. Grannie had the best advice he’d ever heard. She also showed her temper, something she rarely did.
“You dying with him?” Shocked, Blake had told her no, he wasn’t. But he loved him. “Sure, you do. You’d be a fool not to love that old man. I love him too, even though I’d like to brain him at times. So, if you’re not planning on dying with him, what do you plan to do when you’re sitting around the table with him for the very last time? You gonna let him see how badly he’s hurting you? Or are you going to show him that you’re happy for the long life he had and that he, unlike so many others, gets to choose how he goes out of this place?”
“I’m going to show him how much I love him and the time I had with him.” She made him repeat it. Louder, she told him. “I’m going to show him how much I love him and the time I had with him.”
“You’d better, or so help me, Blake, I’ll think of something to make you pay for it.” Blake had kissed her on the cheek, and she smiled up at him—just before she slapped him. “You tell yourself that while you’re sitting there having a fine meal with the man who started all of this. You be happy for him. Those brothers of yours, they’ll take cues from you when they see how it’s making that old buzzard feel. You hear me?”
“Yes. And I love you too, Grannie.” This time he hugged her and hugged her tighter just once more before he left to come here. Thinking about all the things he wanted to say to his grandda, he swallowed them all down. Picking up the bowl of mashed potatoes, he put a pile of them on his plate before passing it to Evan.
“Grandda, you remember the Johnstons, don’t you?” Grandda nodded but looked so sad that Blake had to take a deep breath and let it out slowly before he could speak again. “You’re not going to believe it, but Mrs. Johnston’s oldest son, Donnie, has gotten himself another child on the way. Him not even married, and he’s got children with nearly half the county. Dad, will you pass me the green beans when you’ve gotten some?”
There was a hesitation on his Dad’s part like he was going to say he wasn’t having any. But Evan caught on and put potatoes onto his plate before passing them on. Dad put a little bit of green beans on his plate before handing the heavy bowl over to him. Even if everything tasted like cardboard to him, Blake was going to eat a hardy meal with his family.
Adam spoke up next. “What’s he got now, twelve? Thirteen? My goodness, he’s going to need several jobs by the time this one is born just to keep the kid in diapers. I heard that he’s having so much support taken out of his check, he doesn’t get much to eat.” Evan said that he’d hired him on as a helper in the barn. “That’s good of you. Really nice. I was thinking about our old rooms. Mom said that she wanted them cleaned out so she can paint them. Why don’t we put all the stuff we don’t want or need in the warehouse and have them for people when they’re in need? That might be another job that Donnie can work at.”
The man only had three children, but that didn’t matter now. The conversation was going, and that was what they needed. After a while, a reasonably short while, they got off the subject of Donnie and his difficulties and moved on to memories that each of them had with the family.
Even Dad, after a time, joined in the talk. Mom made her way back and forth to the kitchen several times throughout the meal. She didn’t contribute much, but when she did, it was to scold them for talking about someone, anyone, that had made it into their talks. Every one of them could see that she’d been crying when she came back to the table.
Blake told his grandda of the expansion that he and Shadow were going to do to her studio. It was the third time they’d done this. The first and second times were when she’d needed the extra space for her work. This time it was for classes. She was going to give classes to anyone that wanted to learn.
“I heard that she was having herself another big show. You still representing her?” Blake told Grandda how she’d gotten too big for him to represent. “I bet she has. I’ve seen that spread that was in the New York Times about her. I got it still someplace.”
When Grandda insisted that he was going to find it, Blake looked at his dad. When he hugged him, thanking him for what he’d done, he told him what Grannie had done. They were still laughing about it when he returned with his satchel and the article.
“I have something for you boys. Now don’t be telling me that you don’t need it, because I don’t wanna hear it. After my Rose passed, I was pulled into the lawyer’s office and told the amount of insurance money that had been left to me. Even back then, I didn’t see no use for it. But I kept it around, just in case I did. Over the years, I’ve been adding to it. I’d do an odd job here and there and put more money with it.” Blake was handed the first very heavy manila envelope. “I don’t know that any of you have any bills anymore, but that doesn’t matter. I don’t want you to use it for that. I want you to take the money and have a fun time with it. Take your wives and do something that you’d not normally do, and think of me and my Rose when you’re doing it. You have to each of you promise to do that for me.”
“Grandda, there is over three hundred thousand dollars here.” Grandda asked him what that mattered. “Well, when you put it like that, nothing. But I have no idea what do to with this much cash. I mean, I can think of a couple of things, but nothing that would cost me—”
“The island.” Everyone turned to Mom when she spoke. “Remember when Rose would talk about owning an island? One that was someplace warm that she’d love to spend a week or two there and not have to worry about anything. No servants or phones. Not even a television. A boat for sure, but nothing that will let you know what is going on in the real world, she used to say. Put your money together. Buy an island. Call it—I don’t know, Rose’s Resort. Build a large enough house to have for us all. And a boat. Remember that, Ollie? When she’d get all dreamy eyed about it?”
“Yes. It was her dream to live out there and have nothing to keep her in cookies and teacups.” Grandda sat down. “You need to do that if you can’t think of anything else. That would be something fun for you all. A place that has no outside things to distract you from each other. Yes, that’s what you should do with it.”
“I’m game.” Evan put his envelope in the middle of the table. When the rest of them followed his lead, Blake put his in the pile with a burst of laughter. Grandda asked him what was so funny.
“I’m going to miss you, you slick bastard.” His mom didn�
��t say a word when he got up to hug the elderly man. “I love you, Grandda, and I will always love you. No matter if you’re here or with Grandma, you will forever have a place in my heart.”
When dinner was over, they sat on the back deck, watching the fireflies as they made their rounds. Grandda was rocking quietly, and the rest of them were talking to each other. All Blake could think about was that in the morning, this would be over.
There would be no more long talks with the old man. No more laughing at some of his sayings. Nothing but a pain that would burn in their hearts for a good long time. He looked over at his parents as they rocked in the swing, holding hands and not speaking a word. Then he looked at his brothers, each of them more than likely thinking of things that Grandda had said to them. Something he’d done with them.
It was all there, in his heart, how much he was going to miss him. Then he realized that he missed his own wife. How only being away from her for the few hours he’d been gone felt like a lifetime. It was then that it hit him how utterly unselfish his grandda had been all these years to be here with them.
“I love you, Grandda.” Grandda smiled at him, telling him that he loved him too. “No, you don’t understand. I dearly love you. I want you to do this. You deserve to rest. More than anything, you should be with Grandma. All these years of having you here. I never thought until this moment how much you were giving up to stick around here. I get it. I understand your need to be where you’re going.”
“Thank you, Blake. Coming from you, that means a great deal to me.” Blake rocked in the rocker, trying his best not to reach for Shadow. “Being the youngest never stopped you from being the bravest. It took a great man to do what you’ve done with your life. Sitting back while your wife did what she wanted. No, what she needed. I’m proud to be your grandda. I surely am.”
Blake: The Whitfield Rancher – Tiger Shapeshifter Romance Page 13