Page 4 of Dusty

“What are you grinning at?” He told her, point blank, what he thought of her and her temper. “You won’t feel that good about me once I turn it on you.”

“I’m not worried about that. I plan on being on my best behavior while around you.” She made her way to the living room as soon as Dusty had her signing off on the last of the paperwork to make sure that her sister and her children benefited from her life insurance policy that she’d had since starting her career in the service. “Couldn’t you have had this done by one of the men in the army with you? Not that I mind, really, but I was just curious.”

“I’m on the front line all the time. Attorneys usually don’t make it out to me when I need them.” He told her that he could understand that. “Don’t you have someplace to be?”

“No. Locke and Alex invited me to dinner but with bringing you here, they’ve decided to go out and bring something back for all of us.” She asked him what it would be, no doubt foo-foo food. “No. I don’t even know what that is, but I think that they were talking Chinese when they left.”

“From Woo Chow?” He said that it was where they usually got things to go. “I’d kill for a large bowl of their hot sour soup and a couple of dozen egg rolls.”

Pulling out his phone, he asked Locke if they’d gotten their food yet. Telling him what Shipley wanted, he said that he’d get some. Then she asked for some green tea. He knew that Alex had a stash of it in the house, but he’d ask her. She told him that she did and would be happy to share.

Putting his phone away, he decided to get to know Shipley. First of all, he did wonder what her name was. When she told him that it was Candace and not Candy, he nodded once. Yes, she wasn’t a Candy nor a Candace. He asked her what she wanted him to call her.

“Nothing. I’m not…it’s not like we’re going to be meeting up socially. Or for that matter at all. Just keep to yourself and we’ll be just fine. I’m not here to be social but to help my sister out. She did tell me that your family did a great deal for her, and I can’t thank you all enough for that.” He leaned back on the couch and regarded her. “You’re starting to piss me off. Didn’t you just tell me that you weren’t going to do that?”

“I’m not trying to piss you off. I was just thinking how much you look like Amanda yet I think I could tell the two of you apart. You’re identical, I’m assuming.” She said that she was the older of the two. Asking him what he found different about the two of them, as identical twins and he frowned before speaking. “Amanda is softer around the edges. I don’t mean physically but just softer. Not that I don’t think she could take care of herself as well as you do, but she’s not one to fly off the handle whenshe’s upset. Also, you have more freckles. Or she might cover them up with something. You have a natural look about you, while Amanda is more…I was going to say polished, but that wouldn’t be right here. I think that given the right circumstances that you could outshine the sun.”

“You’re assuming a lot right now. And I never dress up.” He asked her if she’d ever dressed up in her uniform. “Yes, for very special occasions and only something that I can’t get out of. I’ve only been in my dress-up clothing, what I call people clothing twice in my career. Once when I was given a metal for something that I do for my job, and the second time was when I went to Amanda’s wedding. She begged for me to wear it, and I couldn’t turn her down. Besides, it kept Fred’s mother in line, what with me being armed and all. Now there is what I’d call a first-class bitch.”

They were still talking when his brother came home. Alex was on the phone, but his brother didn’t seem to care that she wasn’t helping him bring things in. As soon as Alex saw Shipley, she handed her phone off to her.

He left her to her call and joined Locke and Alex in the dining room sorting out food. There was a lot of it, too. He asked if they’d bought out the restaurant.

“No. I didn’t know what Candace wanted so I got something of every dish. It’s not like it will go to waste.” He told her no, not if anyone else was coming. “Amanda and the kids are coming over too. That’s who Candace is talking to. There was some mix-up about where she was staying, and I let her deal with that.”

When Amanda arrived, Dusty could see the differences better. She didn’t wear what he thought was called foundation, but she did have fewer freckles than Shipley did. He also wondered if it was because one spent more time in the sun than the other. And if Amanda had the time to do that, would she be as freckled as well.

The kids, even the infant, seemed to love their aunt. Especially Mandy. But the little boy, Fred, he would crawl up into her lap when he was upset more than he did his mom. Mom, he noticed, would tell him he was all right. However, Shipley would pretend that she was going to cut off the appendage or something along those lines, making the kids all laugh. A sudden thought occurred to him and he was dizzy with the thought of it being a reality.

He was just getting up to get something for the kids to drink when Shipley was coming out of the kitchen with her hands filled with juice glasses. He saw her then. Saw Shipley when she was fat with a child. His child, and it made him have to sit down with his head between his knees.

“You all right, dumb ass?” He had to smile. Of course, she’d be no different with treating him than she was a child. “Sit up. You’re scaring the shit out of the kids. You heard me. Sit your ass upright before I do it for you.”

They were all eating once he was feeling better. Mandy sat down next to him and when she was ready for some more rice, he got it for her. After thanking him, she looked him right in the eyes. There was something about the look that startled him a little.

“Don’t hurt her.” He asked her what she meant. “My aunt Shipley. Don’t hurt her. She’s been hurt before. When she came home the last time, she was crying a lot. I don’t know what it was, but she hurt really bad, and it hurt my heart because I couldn’t fix it for her. She fixes me all the time, but I couldn’t help her. So…please don’t hurt my aunt.”

“I won’t. At least I’ll try my very best not to hurt her.” He didn’t tell her that she looked as if she could take care of herself if he did, but he didn’t. Something about the innocent request of a child had him trying his best not to be flippant to her. “Thank you for telling me about her last visit. Was it when your dad got sick?”

“No, that dumb grannie was upset that momma wasn’t going to let her live in our house so that she could take care of her baby. She meant my daddy. Mom told me, and it hurt her that dumb grannie wouldn’t allow her to do what was needed to care for Daddy. Then Aunt Shipley came home, and that was a fight, I tell you. But I could tell that she was sad too. I didn’t know from what, but she and Momma cried all night that night, and she was gone the next day. She flew in for a quickie visit she told us.”

“That was good that she could drop everything and come to your momma’s aide, don’t you think? I mean, that might have been all that it was. She was sad for her sister.” Mandy assured him that it wasn’t just that. But then Fred wanted to go and play, and she left the table with him.

“Don’t be getting ideas that you can charm something out of my family.” He looked at Shipley and asked her what she meant. “I don’t know, but you’ll not hurt the kids to do something to me. Come right out with what you’re asking me, and I’ll tell you.”

“She was telling me about her dumb grannie—I have a feeling that she calls her that all the time, not just now. But she was telling me how when your brother-in-law first got sick, she wanted to move in with them to take care of her baby. I believe it hurt her that she didn’t mean the kids for their mom.” Shipley nodded and said that was true. “Then she told me that you came home and that you and your sister cried all night, then you left her. I don’t think that she minded so much that you were there over Grannie, but she did hurt when you left. She didn’t say that, but it was in the way that she told me that you were gone the next morning.”

“I had a deadline to meet. I did leave without being able to tell her bye. I’ll not do that again. Thank you for telling me that.” He asked her why she was crying. “You don’t know me well enough to ask me about that. Maybe someday, but not now.”

“I’ll tell you something that I’ve told very few people other than my family. I have a friend that I care for. Her name is Lila Sheppard. I was supposed to be her date for the prom when we first moved here. I was all set to do it, but the school didn’t like the fact that I was nearly twenty years old and too old to be with an eighteen-year-old girl.” She asked him what happened to her. “The boy that took her to the prom beat the shit out of her and raped her. She lives in a state of limbo now, not talking or responding to her family. I take care that she’s getting the best of care even though I can’t see her. Her parents have no idea that I’m the one who is paying for her nursing home.” He gave himself a good hard shake. “I don’t know why I told you that. As I said, I’ve never told anyone that but my brothers.”

“Thank you for sharing it. I won’t say a word to anyone either. You’re a very kind man, and I’m glad that my sister has you and your family in her corner.” He thanked her. “No problem. But I need to stretch myself out.”

They were sitting on the back veranda when she got up to walk in the yard. It was much too large to be called a porch, and the things that were back there made it seem as if it were a part of the house rather than something you sat on to get a cool breeze in the evening.

There were fans that were on all the time but for winter. A small ice box, one that had seen better days that was forever filled with bottled water. And there were several fruit trees right off of it that you could reach out and get a few plums or apples should you wish. And in the early spring, the place was alive with blooms and flowers.

He watched Shipley play with the children. She was good with them, not overly harsh when she spoke to them. Dusty had a thought that she’d make a good mom, but she’d be a little overly protective of them. Then he laughed at himself. She’d be as overly protective of them as he thought that he would be.

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