Page 5 of Locke

“Are you saying that I’m not dressed well enough to be out in public with the great Locke Erikson?” He laughed, and that confused her more than her losing her temper with him. “What the hell is so funny?”

“Do you often fly off the handle when someone is trying to help you? I was only giving you the option. I in no way was implying that you were not worthy of being with me.” Her face heated up, and she turned her face away from him to cry. “It’s all right, Alex. I swear to you, no one will care what you have on. I think that you’re beautiful no matter how you’re dressed.”

Of course, that got her to crying again, and she didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, she was stood from the table, and Locke hugged her. It was the first time that she’d had contact with anyone other than her mother that made her feel worthy of something. Crying harder, she clung to him while spilling out everything that had happened to her since she left home a few years ago in pursuit of finding herself a good job as well as a nicer place to live.

“I’ve been squatting for several years now. Just any place that would keep a roof over my head. Then, there was the police coming around, making me leave. I even tried to get myself arrested so that I’d have a hot meal and a place to be safe.” She went on and on about how she’d been trying so hard but just couldn’t seem to get a break. It was then that she realized that she was unloading on a man that she barely knew. Looking up at him, she told him how sorry she was.

“Its fine. Really. You needed to let it all out, and I’m thrilled that I was able to be there for you.” She nodded and stepped away from him, hating that she was forever crying of late. “Come on, we’ll be early, but we’ll go onto the—”

“I’d like to take you up on your offer to wear something from Grannie’s closet. I feel grungy and would love something fresh to wear. Thank you for that.” After showing her the closet, he left her to it. He’d been right; she and her grannie were the same size, and she was excited to be able to wear something that smelled like her, too.

After deciding on the black dress that had been recently dry-cleaned, she stripped down and pulled it on. She couldn’t reach the zipper up the back, but it still looked really good on her. Figuring that she’d get Ms. Bee or even Locke to finish up for her, she put on a little perfume and headed down the stairs. It sounded like there was a heated argument going on when she entered the living room, where it was the loudest.

Putting her fingers in her mouth, she let go of one of her infamous whistles. That got their attention all right, but they nearly killed themselves standing up when they looked at her.

“Locke?” She looked at who she thought was Dusty when he spoke. “Aren’t you going to introduce this vision to us?”

“Not if you’re going to be stupid. No. She thinks that she knows us from what Martha had told her about us. She got me on one. Let’s see how well she’ll do. And behave yourself. She kind of tender right now.” She wanted to tell him she wasn’t tender, but she looked at him, and he winked. “Everyone, this is Alexandra Grable, daughter to William Grable and granddaughter of Martha’s. She’s been making her way here since she passed away.”

Not only did she get them all right on the first try, but she also knew what they did for a living. Smiling, she turned her back to them and asked if one of them could zip her zipper. When she heard something break, she turned back to them to see what had happened. Three of them were on the floor nursing cuts, and the other two were still fighting.

“Don’t make me have to smack you around. Locke, could you please zip me up?” He stood up, the only one that hadn’t been fighting, and Alexandra presented her back to him. He told her how Grannie had a zipper puller. He had no idea what it was called that she used. “I didn’t want to go through her things. I’m sure that it would have been right there as most of her dresses had a back zipper on them.”

Once she was dressed, the seven of them headed toward the front door. She could get used to this sort of gentlemanly helpfulness for about five seconds. She finally walked through the door and got into the limo that hadn’t been there the previous night, without assistance from the male hormones that were still arguing about who was going to sit next to her.

Getting out, Alexandra went to the front of the limo and got in the seat next to the driver. After telling her who she was, they waited for the idiots to realize that she was already out of the house and ready to get going.

“You’d think that they’d never seen a woman before.” The limo driver, her name was Anna, said that they probably hadn’t seen one as beautiful as she was. “I’m just plain, but thanks so much for that. My confidence needed a bump.”

Locke came out of the house just as the others were coming to the conclusion that she wasn’t with them. Laughing, he told her that they were being idiots, the same thing that Anna had said about her being beautiful. If they kept this up, she was going to be sobbing again. And it wouldn’t do well. She had a feeling that as soon as a tear was shed, they’d be all over that. Instead, she listened to the men behind her as they talked about the city mayor. Turning in her seat, she looked at them and asked what they were talking about.

“He hired a group to come in and survey the land...how long ago, Locke? I’m thinking not that long ago. When asked, they told us that as soon as the funeral was over for Martha, the house and the barn needed to come down. I don’t know what he figured was going to happen with that, as Martha told us that if they did that, the land would be forfeited. I guess he thinks he can get away with it now that she’s gone.” Alexandra asked if they were afraid of the house being destroyed while they were sleeping. “No. This was a couple of years before Martha got sick, and she ordered them off her land. Once they were gone, she had us take her to the Mayor’s office—she called him a fat ass, and she rimmed him a new ass. I doubt he can sit without remembering her.”

“So the land and house are the cities if they play by her rules. I knew that I loved her.” She turned back around and asked the driver if they could stop at a convenience store. As soon as the car stopped, she got out and made her way into the store. Realizing that she didn’t have any money on her, not even for the pop that she had to purchase something to use the bathroom, she turned to leave and bumped into Locke. She started to tell him what she wanted when he winked at her.

“You forgot your purse, didn’t you?” She nodded, almost telling him that it didn’t matter as she didn’t have enough change for the soft drink anyway. He hugged her tightly and then handed her a twenty. “If you’d not mind, the rest of us need a bottle of water. Do you want my help with that?”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.” He seemed to understand that she was broke. It had her being embarrassed but it was so easy to cool her temper with Locke. Like he had some potion that would have her smiling instead of lashing out like she normally would have done.

He greeted the cashier by name and told him that they were going to the reading of the well. Alexandra grabbed her pop of choice and headed to the counter. The brothers, all of them, came in to get their drink, and she was glad to see them drinking with her. While Locke and Charlie, the elderly man running the register, talked about the man’s grandchildren, she made her way to the limo. When the men got in, she was handed a large bag of pork rinds to ‘stave off hunger’ while they were in the office.

These men were going to make it so that she fell in love with them in a short period of time. And she was going to miss them when she had to move on. Especially if the mayor was gunning for them after the house was given to the city. It sucked, she thought that the one time she found a friendly—or in this case, several friendly faces and she needed to move on.

Chapter 3

Alex couldn’t wait for this day to be over. His wife had been yelling at him for days since his mother had died, that he needed to get his ass going and get them into their new home. He didn’t care what it looked like on the inside because it didn’t matter. They were going to live in it until they could sell it, and then they’d have all the cash they’d ever need. He’d made a mistake about telling her about the safes in the house. There were six, he thought, just filled with cash that she’d been hoarding over the years. His mom had grown up during the terrible times, and he knew that she was forever afraid of running out of cash. Not him.

William loved to spend money. It was his passion in life to spend it as quickly as he got it. It didn’t matter to him if he had gotten a large windfall only to be broke the next day. Nope. Money was made to be spent, and he thought that he was pretty good at spending it on every shiny object he came across. When his wife popped him in the back of the head, he turned to pay attention to who had just entered the room. It was those men.

“What are they doing here? Everybody knows that they only took care of my momma so they could have her money. I know that they didn’t get it because I’ve been watching the courthouse for houses being transferred out of my mom’s name and into theirs.” Mr. Ross told him to sit down and keep his mouth closed. “I won’t do that. I have as much right to be here as they do.”

“You mean you have more rights to be here more than they do.” He looked at his wife, trying to figure out what she had said that was so different from what he had said. “Just say it, Willy. Tell them that you have more right to be here than them.”

“That’s what I said.” She told him that, as usual, he got it backwards. “No, I didn’t. Why are you going on with me now? I’m making my point about them not supposed to be here. Now hush, honey, so we can get our stuff unpacked and moved in. I’m going to take the master bedroom for myself. The rest of you can fight over whatever you want.”

“Mr. Grable, I have several questions to ask you before we move on. The first one is, do you acknowledge Alexsandra Grable as your legal daughter?” He looked at the young woman that the attorney had pointed to. “There is DNA proof that she’s your child. Are you going to deny her or not?”

“I guess her momma said that I am. And yeah, they did those tests on me, and it turns out that she’s my kid.” He looked at the attorney again. “It doesn’t make any difference on me getting the house does it? I mean, that don’t change any.”

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