Operation: Austin

Chapter Six Part One

The New Client

After checking the house to see if Jax had made a mess, Gary went to the kitchen, turned on a gas burner, and started breakfast. One of his favorite dishes was mixing veggies with eggs, bacon, and cheese, scrambling it, then loading it into tortillas with sour cream and salsa. He was standing in his boxers, heating a pan of oil, and doing the prep work when Carla came in the door from the garage. His back to her, he looked over his shoulder, and his mind registered she was early; it wasn’t quite 6:00 a.m.

“Gary!” she exclaimed, obviously perturbed. “You must wear clothes now. You have a young lady in the house!”

Before he could open his mouth to reply, Paige rounded into the room and said, “Gary, where is the lotion? I need to keep my skin moist in this heat…”

She paused as her sentence trailed off. “Oh! Hi, Carla, I wasn’t expecting you so early!”

For the briefest moment, you could cut the tension in the air with a knife. Paige stood there, wide-eyed and embarrassed, wearing nothing except a towel that could cover either her p***y or breasts, but not both. It seemed her breasts won, as her exposed p***y lay visible below the cotton. The apparent intimacy of her being essentially naked, her question about moisture, and her familiar tone hung in the air.

Carla stood there with her arms crossed, giving Gary the stink eye. He stood there with a chef’s knife in hand, feeling like he was some kid whose mom caught him watching porn. He waved the knife in the other direction from where Paige had come.

“It’s in the hall bathroom, Sweetheart, on the other end of the house.”

Paige quickly turned and fled out of the room. Carla glared at Gary with a “what in the hell did you do” look on her face. Ricky Ricardo never actually said it, but Gary had some ‘splaining’ to do.

“We went swimming and took a shower. She’s fine. Don’t worry.”

Not wanting to get into details, he returned to his prep work, head down. Muttering in Spanish, Carla stormed from the room in Paige’s direction. He barely caught something about “ardiendo en el infierno”, burning in hell, as her voice faded into the distance.

“Oh boy, s**t just got real,” he muttered to himself, wondering about the conversation being held down the hall.

He finished chopping the veggies, then got the eggs and cheese out of the fridge before dropping the veggies and bacon pieces into the pan of hot olive oil. The sizzle and aromas wafted into the air, and he turned on the hood vent fan. He stirred what he had prepped into the pan, then, after a couple of minutes, added the eggs and cheese, stirring them together as they cooked.

Just about that time, the girls returned to the kitchen, talking in Spanish like besties who found a Gucci bag for $5.00 at the thrift store. Paige continued to her room, presumably to dress. Carla came into the kitchen with an apologetic look on her face.

“You didn’t tell me she speaks Spanish,” she admonished.

He shrugged and smirked, “I didn’t know. So, I guess you’ll have to find another language to curse me in.”

She laughed. “She speaks Spanish; you don’t! She grew up living next to a family from Honduras. They had three kids. She also said you were a perfect gentleman, and you cared for her because of her fears. She admitted she offered you more, but you declined. I’m proud of you, Gary. I’m sorry, I thought the worst, but you are a man, and most men are bastards.”

Her comment was unusually candid. Carla respected their positions and their privacy. She was aware he occasionally entertained friends, and when he did, she was excused for the weekend. They were close, and she knew she was secure in her position, but she would not usually say things like that. Paige’s arrival had shifted Carla into Mom mode. Undoubtedly, having a daughter almost the same age had something to do with it. He was certain Paige hadn’t given Carla details about what “taking care of her” entailed, or he would still have been in her doghouse.

“Apology accepted,” he said as he pulled the pan off the gas burner. “You are here early; would you like breakfast with us?”

“No, I just wanted to get started on my work. I need to take off early today.” She was fibbing, and they both knew it. She never needed to worry about taking time off.

He smiled, “Okay. No problemo.”

She quickly scurried off, down the hallway towards the media room and the training center. Watching her retreat, Gary managed to keep a laugh from bursting out. Carla kept his house immaculate. She had a battalion of maids who came in on Friday mornings to go over every inch of the place under her supervision. She and Gary both knew she was here early on a recon mission, and she thought she had caught him.

Shortly thereafter, Paige bounced back into the room wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. “Can I go to work in the garden this morning before it gets too hot?”

Gary was pleased she was feeling enough at home to ask. “Sweetheart, you can do anything you want; it’s not going to be so hot today, but don’t get burned. This afternoon let’s go into town and see the chiropractor and acupuncturist. I think it might help you heal faster.”

He handed her a very green smoothie made from vegetables from the garden and greenhouse. It was mostly carrots and spinach, with an apple thrown in to sweeten it. She looked at it with a twisted expression that ranged between “eww” and “blech!!”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s pretty green tasting, but you need the good stuff to heal those bruises, vitamin K for sure, and get at least twenty minutes of sunlight per day with maximum skin exposure. No Sunscreen! Don’t burn, but you need to create optimal vitamin D.”

As they carried breakfast out to the courtyard terrace, she asked, “An acupuncturist, with the needles?”

“Yep, but don’t worry. They are so thin you’ll hardly even feel them. If you don’t want it, that’s fine, but it will really help you.”

She was thinking about having needles stuck in her flesh, but she’d heard that it helps people. “Okay, I’ll try it.”

“So, Spanish, huh?” he commented more than asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, the family next door was from Central America. They came up after the hurricane; we were the only four kids nearby.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “You know how kids are. I picked things up fast. Three of them and one of me, it was easier for me to learn their language than to teach them mine. I never thought about it, really. I was three years old when they moved in, so it just kind of happened.”

They sat and ate, discussing the garden, the orchards, and their love of chickens and fresh eggs.

“There are tools in the barn. Make yourself at home. Jax will probably follow you out; he would rather be in the barn chasing rats than do anything else. Just keep in mind there are some snakes out there, but they won’t bother you.”

She paused at that statement. “Snakes?” she looked at him wide-eyed.

“Yes, I don’t like putting out poison to kill rodents. Gopher snakes are the best rat and mouse control on the farm. I have to be careful to protect the small chicks when I have them. Snakes like them as much as the mice. I had to teach Jax to leave the gopher snakes alone, but he barks like hell at rattlesnakes. I have never been able to keep the cats away from them; they will get them if they have the chance. Most of the kids from church know if they catch one, I’ll give them twenty dollars for it.”

She was not sure she wanted to garden with the snakes. “Oh, we have gopher snakes in Idaho, too, but we don’t catch them.”

“Don’t worry, we don’t see them often. Sometimes in the morning. They don’t like to be out in the open during broad daylight, so they hide and come out at night. If you get too close, they hiss and put up an act, so you aren’t likely to get any surprises. We don’t usually get rattlesnakes on this side. They prefer the rocks further up into the rez.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Just keep your eyes open, and you’ll be fine. Jax isn’t going to let you get in trouble.”

When they finished breakfast, they carried the dishes back into the kitchen. Paige rinsed them off and put them in the dishwasher with the ones from last night.

“I’m going into my office for a while to work. I have a new client who has probably messaged me by now. If you need me, I will be at the end of the hall past our bedrooms.”

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks for breakfast. I’m not used to eating like this. I’ll get fat!”

“Well, that I doubt,” he replied, not able to imagine it, as slim as she was. Walking toward the hallway carrying a cup of genmaicha green tea, he added, “But you can use the gym anytime you want, so make yourself at home.”

He left Paige to sort out her morning and started thinking about his task list, priorities, and the work he had to get done.