The Shack series

Chapter 5

"I never even saw her or the girls after I got out of the hospital. She had Chuck keep filing protective orders against me. Under the Lautenburg amendment, if you're under a protective order you can't have access to a g*n. For some medical personnel, that isn't a big deal but in Special Forces, it is. I didn't have the money to fight it since she'd taken everything, and it looked like I was going to end up thrown out of the Army and lose my pension if I didn't cooperate. Besides..." I stopped, I wasn't sure if I should tell her the truth.

"'Besides' what?"

"I was really angry."

"You're not angry now?"

"Not compared to then, I was losing control, drinking too damn much, taking pills I shouldn't have been. I was dreaming of killing her and Chuck all the time. Too much."

"It sounds like she deserved it."

"Tara and Tiffany wouldn't have had any family then. I still wouldn't have felt any better. Besides, if I did, you wouldn't be here. And today would have been boring as hell."

She looked at me and quirked her mouth in a half-smile. "Even if I peed in your car?"

"You handled it better than most would have. You didn't pass out, you didn't throw up and you didn't grab my arm while I was driving."

"I kind of thought that might get us killed."

"That's pretty clear thinking for a kid off the short bus. I've seen trained soldiers do worse."

She smiled and straightened up. "Not bad for one of the stupid kids, huh?"

"Damn good, actually. You just have to learn to stay frosty. Don't let your emotions take over and tell you what to do. Think things through and respond, don't just react. It took me thirty-five years to figure that out and I still Damm it up."

"Stay frosty? I can do that. I just wish I was smarter."

"So you can't read real well. So-the-Damm-what? Get books on audio. Even the little library here has tons of them. Just keep looking at things differently until you figure out how to get what you want."

She nodded and set her jaw as her parents' ridiculously oversized house came into sight.

As we got out of the car, I pointed at her. "Remember what I said. I don't want to have to come looking for you again, Thugbunny."

She smirked. "I like that. 'Thugbunny.'"

"Are you ready?"

"Thugbunny says, 'Damm it.'"

I leaned on the doorbell.

"She hates it when people do that."

"I know."

The door opened and Charlotte looked us over.

"Got something of yours, Charli."

She winced at my old nickname for her. "Delaney, get in here."

Delaney marched through, scowling at her, then Charlotte tried to close the door on me. I caught it and pushed it open enough to stagger her back so I could step through. "Forgetting something?"

She tried to look innocent. "Oh, that. I simply don't know where it might be. I will have to get back to you about it some time."

It was perfectly clear she had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Past her, I could see a number of well dressed women sitting in chairs in her very proper sitting room. The only two I recognized were Tiffany and Tara, who watched me disdainfully. No doubt, they were here to be respectable witnesses to any violence on my part. I watched Delaney disappear into the next room.

I glared at her and hissed. "You gotta be Damm kidding me. I did what you wanted."

"Charles isn't home, but I will have him see if he can find it when he does get here." She said it loudly, politely, but the smug look on her face said everything that needed said.

"It's okay, Mom, I found it for you." Delaney cheerfully announced from the archway. "It was in the safe in the study, right next to your jewelry." I saw confused looks directed at Charlotte by Tara and Tiffany. Whatever Charlotte had told them wasn't holding water right now.

Delaney walked towards us, holding up the wooden case I'd made for the g*n back when I was in high school. "This is it, isn't it?" Charlotte gawped at her, speechless for a damn change.

I opened the case and ran my fingertips along the weapon. "Twelve notches for Pops on Iwo Jima, four for Dad in the A Shau, and six for me in Mogadishu."

Delaney looked at the .45 in wonder, then up at me. "I hope it was worth it."

I looked in her eyes. "I think you just might be."

****

Some days it's just hard to get out of bed. Someone pounded on the door and I extracted myself from Sheree, trying not wake her up. She'd come home with me after our date a few weeks ago, and never really quite got around to leaving. I was frankly hopeful that she never would.

I couldn't even remember her deciding to move in. She seemed to be able to talk me into just about anything. She'd even talked me into donating time at the local clinic. I decided to be honest about my worries about the drugs and she promised me she'd help me keep on the right path. She'd winked and leaned way forward and said. "I can make you feel better than any pill ever invented." She'd gone right ahead and proven that.

I looked down at her fondly, then pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and opened the door.

Delaney was stretched to her full height, what there was of it, arms crossed over her chest and a pair of work gloves dangling from her belt, one boot up on a full duffle bag.

She pulled the brim of her Budweiser bucket hat up a bit. "Ready for work, Boss."

"What the Damm are you doing here? That crazy b***h will find a way to put me in prison for this."

"The 'crazy b***h' is sitting in her car at the front gate to the yard. She's convinced you were serious when you said you'd shoot her if she came onto your property again. I told her she was probably right, what with your anger issues and all. She's dropping me off with you, at least until the election is over in November."

"Really?"

"She has enough problems without me around. I talked to Tiffany and Tara, and they are asking her some questions she doesn't want to answer about what happened. I told them to call you, but I don't know if they have the balls. She has formal paperwork, a power of attorney, health insurance and everything."

I could see the nose of the gold Lexus at the front gate. "I just got a registered letter from Tara yesterday. I guess she and Tiffany want to hear my side of things sometime."

I looked her over. Loose work jeans, steel toe boots, a black T-shirt and a crazy grin. "Damn, I didn't think they had it in them."

I sighed. "What's your plan?"

"I'll work for you, we can figure out some kind of school thing, maybe homeschooling."

"Homeschooling?"

"As long as you include a lot of metal shop." She looked over to her left. "Is that what I think it is over there?"

I followed her stare. "It's what's left of a '58 Plymouth Fury. Not much left but the body."

Her eyes widened. "Like in the movie 'Christine'? I'll need a car when I'm sixteen, you know. Unless you want me hanging out with boys to get rides."

"I think it's pretty obvious you aren't a very good judge when it comes to boys."

She rolled her eyes. "Look who's talking. You actually married that crazy b***h. Talk about short bus stupid."

"Good point, but it'll take a lot of work to get that running."

"From what you said, you started with less when you built your Cobra. Besides, I think we'll have time."

I looked down at her duffle bag. "What'd you do?"

"Showed up at one of Dad's press conferences in my T-shirt." She gestured to her black T-shirt; it had a craft paint homemade logo on it of a crude Dammed-up looking stick figure rabbit in a sideways hat and the saying "Thugbunny Says Damm It!" on it. She turned around and I could see "Full Retard" across her shoulders.

She smirked. "And I told them I'd keep doing it unless they let stay here and work for you this summer."

"They couldn't just take your T-shirt away?"

"I told them I made twenty more."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but I really only made five. I ran out of paint. My last T-shirt says 'Princess Glittersparkle Says Suck My.'" She shrugged.

Sheree came up behind me and leaned over my shoulder, pressing herself against my back. She stretched against me sensually. "Let me help her get her stuff back to that back bedroom, it'll be her room. You go get the papers."

Delaney giggled. "You figured out how to deal with his anger issues, didn't you?"

Sheree winked at her. "Just workin' with what the Almighty gave me."

I walked down steps, trying to shoot them a glare, but from the way they were grinning at me, it didn't work very well.

Charlotte kept looking straight forward as I came up to her car.

"Charles wasn't very happy about losing that gun."

"Tell him to grow a pair of balls, shoot some bad guys and carve his own notches. Shouldn't be taking s**t that doesn't belong to him."

"He's a collector, he's not like you."

"Lucky you. How's this gonna work?"

"Sign the papers and file them. Just keep her off of CNN. She's too much for us to deal with right now. We'll see after the election." She refused to look at me.

She was lying, I could tell. She had no intention of ever taking Delaney back if she could avoid it, and I almost called her on it.

Almost.